A greener way: what is the most environmentally friendly way to dispose of your body?

In the middle of a sprawling factory floor in Pudsey, Leeds, stands a gleaming steel cylinder. Its creator believes that one day most of us will find ourselves in something similar.

It's a Resomator machine - a pressurized canister in which cadavers are immersed in a mixture of 150-degree water and potassium hydroxide solution for three to four hours until the flesh dissolves, leaving only soft, grayish bones. After drying in a nearby kiln, they are ground into a paper-white powder and the liquid is sent to a wastewater treatment plant for disposal. The entire process is controlled by a touch screen and a single "Start" button away from the eyes of the mourners. Ashes to ashes no more.

Resomator, its supporters say, is badly needed by the burial and cremation industry, which is increasingly damaging the environment. More than three quarters of Britons now choose cremation over burial. This process emits an average of 400 kg of CO _{2 per} body _{into the} atmosphere. Cremation smoke also includes mercury fumes from dental fillings, which accounted for 16% of all mercury emissions in the UK in 2005, as well as other toxic emissions from burnt dentures and molten bone cement used in common operations such as hip replacements.

Burial also has its consequences: as the body and coffin decompose, embalming fluid seeps into the soil, as well as other toxins such as radiotherapy or chemotherapy drugs. In addition, burial sites are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive in built-up areas. The Money Advice Service found that the average cost of a basic burial in the UK is £4,267, with prices rising by 6% a year over the past 14 years - twice the rate of inflation. According to a table compiled by the Cremation Society of Great Britain, the cost of cremation could exceed £1,000 in 2019, up from £650 in 2010. The continued price rise has prompted the Competition and Markets Authority to investigate the funeral sector.

Two resomators at Resomation's headquarters in Leeds

In the United States, resomation, also known as alkaline hydrolysis, has been used since the mid-1990s and is permitted in 19 states. The technology was originally developed in the U.S. to dispose of cows during the decade-long foot-and-mouth disease epidemic. In 2008, Dean Fisher, a physician at the University of California, Los Angeles, realized it could be used for donated medical cadavers when they were no longer needed. "Everything in this process is a win-win; everything is recyclable," he says, adding that 1,200 bodies have passed through UCLA's resomator since it became operational in 2012.

Fisher bought the machine from Leeds-based Resomation Ltd, which hopes the process will become part of public funeral rituals. There is a certain "ick factor" associated with the technology, says Fisher. "People worry that their bodies are dissolving or that it's a waste of water, but those 250 gallons we use per body can then be used as fertilizer because of the nutrients they contain. People's perceptions have to change."

Resomation's founder, Sandy Sullivan, has faced this "nuisance factor" since he started the business in 2007. The company received initial funding from Co-Op Funeralcare and then partnered with Leeds and Bradford Boiler Company. Funeral homes in the U.S. and Canada have purchased its technology, including a California company that uses resomation even for pets. In 2017, Rowley Regis Crematorium in the West Midlands was set to become the first in the UK to use Resomator, but local water company Severn Trent banned it from doing so, citing "serious concerns about the public acceptability of liquefied remains of the dead entering the water supply". Sullivan insists: "There's no reason why resomation can't be put to work - it's a sterile liquid similar to water, it has no DNA in it, and it's cleaner than most things that go into water treatment plants, like blood and chemicals from hospitals. Crucially, it's not the water we're going to drink." Water UK, the regulator, declined to comment on the issue.

However, in the two years since the Rowley Regis fiasco, Sullivan says progress has been made in working with Water UK. He is confident the technology will receive approval within the next year. "It leaves a six times smaller carbon footprint and uses seven times less energy than burial," he says, noting that a study funded by the Danish government has also shown that the environmental impact of burial/cremation and resomation costs €63 per body in the former case and just €3 in the latter. "We're approaching climate catastrophe, but we're still burning bodies," says Sullivan. "The feedback from the US is that people are interested in it because they think the water-based process is gentler than flames."

Sandy Sullivan: "Resomation leaves six times less carbon footprint and uses seven times less energy than burial

In recent years, the PR problem of resomation has been mitigated by the emergence of other alternatives to cremation and burial, including promiscuity - drying bodies, which are then broken into small remains by vibration - and "mushroom suiting," in which mushrooms speed up the decomposition process. In May, Washington state legalized the composting of human bodies.

Developed by Katrina Spade and her company Recompose, the technique involves placing a corpse in an above-ground container filled with soil and organic materials. In about four weeks," Spade says, "your body turns into usable soil on which new life will grow. Your family will be able to grow a tree, and perhaps your great-grandchildren will someday swing on its branches." Despite opposition from the Catholic Church, Spade hopes to open the first Recompose center in Seattle in 2020.

According to Professor Douglas Davies, head of the Center for Life and Death Research at Durham University, our attitudes towards death have changed significantly in recent decades. Cremation became popular in the UK in the late 19th century, pushed by growing secularism and the industrial revolution, but environmental concerns have led to the rise of natural burials and new technologies. "There are now about as many forest burials in the UK as there are crematoria," says Davies. "Language is very important when it comes to new techniques, and I think the term 'resomation' will catch on in the UK because it's quite opaque. People prefer cremation because they don't like the idea of burial being something creepy or 'lonely', but at the same time they are concerned about the use of fire in cremation, and that's where resomation comes in handy."

Claire and Rupert Callender from Devon opened their Green Funeral Company in 2000 and are now one of the country's best known eco-friendly funeral specialists. They are raising funds to buy Resomator. "Funeral homes are conservative, they're concerned about people's perceptions and how to sell the Resomator to the public," says Claire, "but with cremation, your grandmother essentially goes up the chimney and then comes out as soot and carbon particles and everyone inhales them.

While large funeral homes often take on three or four cremations a day, the Callenders only perform about 70 a year, with some ceremonies taking up to 12 hours at the Sharpham Trust Natural Burial Ground at Sharpham Meadow. "People want to talk about death and take part in it, but the funeral homes on the high street are completely oblivious to that," says Clare. "They have a barrier between themselves and people, they wear these ridiculous costumes and they're in the business of selling. It's fake Victoriana 'dignity' and 'respect' - teaching you the etiquette of bereavement."

Flowers and other markers at the Sharpham Trust's natural burial ground at Sharpham Meadow. - Photo: Beccy Strong/The Guardian

When her grandmother passed away in 2018, Una Mills decided to avoid this traditional approach, opting instead for a service in the woods. "She was a born gardener for most of her life and lived very minimally," says Mills, "so it was very appropriate for her to have a service in nature, especially since she told me that her greatest accomplishment in life was the compost she made. Mills tried to make the funeral as low-tech as possible, using a wicker casket and no embalming agents. She believes that resomation or composting the person is not necessary, "Natural burials are very efficient. You can bury a person three feet deep rather than six feet deep, which makes the body decompose much faster."

For Sullivan, the priority is not to replace natural burial, but to provide more environmentally friendly options. "We've been told that our technology costs about the same as cremation," he says, "so there are choices. People need to get past their assumptions and do what's best for the planet." The National Funeral Directors Association also "welcomes any proper method of disposal that offers the public a choice." Fisher, meanwhile, is so enthusiastic about the idea of resomation that he would like to go through the process after death. "They'll put me here after I die - and if that's not confirmation enough for you, I don't know what is," he says.

In Leeds, one of Sullivan's two resomators hums quietly during a test cycle, liquid splashing in it like a dishwasher. It's about to be sent to a funeral home in Minnesota. "This is the future," Sullivan says, stroking the curved steel body. "It's always hard to change things in such a conservative market, but we have to take care of the planet even after we die, because we keep destroying it while we live."