Tag: funerals

‘Boil in a bag’ funerals that dissolve bodies and flush them down the drain to become available in Britain after catching on around the world

Putting a loved one to rest in the UK typically involves either a ground burial or a flame-based cremation. 

But an alternative method could finally get the go-ahead. 

A new consultation into funerary methods by the independent Law Commission could finally result in legal approval of ‘boil in a bag’ funerals in the UK. 

At the moment, there is no regulatory framework for the method, officially known as water cremation or alkaline hydrolysis – effectively banning it from use in the country. 

Water cremation involves rapidly decomposing a corpse in water and alkaline chemicals under high temperatures, leaving only liquid and bones.

The liquid, known as ‘effluent’, can go down the drain with other wastewater and bones that can be ground to ash for the bereaved owner to take home. 

Advocates say the method is better for the environment, but others believe it is an undignified way to dispose of the dead. 

Here’s a look at how the controversial method works. 

Water cremation uses water, alkaline chemicals, heat, and sometimes pressure and agitation, to accelerate natural decomposition, leaving bone fragments and a neutral liquid called effluent. 

The effluent is sterile, and contains salts, sugars, amino acids and peptides – but no tissue or DNA is left. 

This effluent is discharged with all other wastewater, while the softened bone can be ground up for the owner to take home and lay to rest, much like ashes – although any metal hip and knee joints come out unchanged. 

At the Bradshaw Celebration of Life Center in Minnesota, there’s an alkaline hydrolysis machine located in the basement that cost $750,000 (£580,000) to install about a decade ago. 

Bodies go into the rectangular steel box, which is about six feet high and four feet wide and looks like part of a high security ‘bank vault’. 

With just the press of a few buttons, the machine locks and starts to fill with water – and the 90-minute process can begin. 

By the end, all tissue has dissolved and is free from DNA – and is a brown colour that somewhat resembles ‘tea or an ale’. 

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Schumer and AOC Team Up to Announce Taxpayers Now on the Hook for COVID Funerals, Including for Illegal Immigrants

If there’s one way to make sure COVID-19 deaths don’t go down, this is it.

New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer joined forces this week to publicize a federal program that will reimburse the families of coronavirus victims up to $7,000 for funeral expenses for deaths from the disease that occurred in 2020 — even if the death involved an illegal alien.

And, according to CNN, Schumer said the lawmakers want the program to last as long as the pandemic does — which means the numbers are likely to show the pandemic lasting a good long time.

According to the New York Post, the program Schumer and Ocasio-Cortez introduced at a joint news conference in New York on Monday is part of the COVID relief measure signed into law in December by then-President Donald Trump.

Under the bill, $2 billion will go to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for COVID-19 funeral expenses, according to the Post, with about $200,000 million going to New York, the hardest-hit area of the country.

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