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Crematorium considers dissolving bodies

A council-run crematorium is planning to carry out ’‘science-fiction’’ funerals including freeze-drying and even dissolving dead bodies.

Cambridge City Crematorium have proposed a set of gruesome after-death arrangements – which they claim are more environmentally-friendly than traditional funerals.

Bosses have called for a 21st century ’‘commercial approach’’ towards handling death and asked Cambridge City Council to let them use futuristic technologies.

Plans include using liquid nitrogen to chill a body to -196C, in a process called ’‘promession’’ or ’‘cyromation’’, when it is so brittle it can be fragmented and cleaned.

The body is then freeze-dried to remove moisture and the dust is used as environmentally-friendly compost or buried in a biodegradable casket.

Crematorium chiefs also want to place bodies in silk bags and submerge them in a 160C alkaline solution – which would dissolve them in around three hours.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .