By Anna Mudd
In the fall of 2019, Drew Sorrells, an interior designer, stood behind her family home in Boulder, Colorado. She watched cars pass by, as her family stood beside her.
They each took turns sprinkling the white, powdery remains of their mother in the garden. Sorrells smiled to herself, thinking, “God, if anyone knew what we were doing right now.”
Just a year before, she was hiking the Wonderland Lake trail in Boulder, and noticed a magnetic advertisement on a car she passed. It said “The Natural Funeral” in big, bold letters.
At the time, Sorrells’ mother was having heart problems that were serious enough to make the whole family worry. But her mother avoided any discussion of death, insisting she was immortal and didn’t want to talk funeral plans.
The word “natural” on the advertisement drew Sorrells in – so much so that she grabbed her iPhone out of her pocket and typed “The Natural Funeral” in her notes. She didn’t think about it until a year later as she stood next to her mother, who was in the final stages of heart failure.
When the hospice worker asked Sorrells what funeral home the family had chosen, she thought back to her notes and immediately said “The Natural Funeral.”
At that point, Sorrells – like most other people –was not acquainted with the word “aquamation.”
A few days after her mother passed, Sorrells visited The Natural Funeral. As she listened to options she had for her mother, aquamation stuck out.
Aquamation is a marketing phrase for Alkaline Hydrolysis. In this fireless cremation process, the cremation professional places a dead body into a large, stainless-steel machine containing a solution of 95 percent water and 5 percent alkaline materials. They then heat the water, maintaining a high-pressure level which works against the heat to ensure the temperature never reaches a boiling point.
Over the course of three hours, the solution degenerates the body, creating a liquid that is flushed as wastewater, leaving only bones behind. They then crush the bones into a powder, which is given to the family of the deceased, similar to ashes.
Sorrells was immediately drawn to it.
“There are many people passing every day. That exponentially has such an effect on the environment. Aquamation is a totally natural experience that brings the body back to water and it basically becomes compost material,” she said.
So, Sorrells ended up in her backyard, sprinkling her mother’s aqua-mains atop the roses, lilies, and various garden vegetables.
“If you think about it, instead of just throwing ashes in the air, you’re actually treating a regeneration cycle, which is just so amazing,” she said.
An environmental process
Most people don’t consider or understand the widespread environmental impact of the funeral industry.
According to a report from the Green Burial Council , burials in the U.S. “use about 4.3 million gallons of embalming fluid, 20 million feet of wood, 1.6 million tons of concrete, and 64,500 tons of steel.”
Fire cremation also produces around 139 pounds of carbon dioxide per cremation, leading to 1.74 billion pounds of CO2 emissions a year.
Aquamation reduces these emissions by almost 40 percent.
“The difference in the energy our aquamation machines use versus flame cremations could drive a small car 1,000 miles,” said Joseph Wilson, founder of Bio-Response Solutions – a maker of alkaline hydrolysis machines.
Sandy Sullivan is a founder of Resomation Ltd, a company that produces aquamation technology. She said that water cremation uses less energy and produces less greenhouse than flame cremation.
“For aquamation, there is electricity required, so it isn’t carbon zero-but it does have a much, much lower carbon footprint,” said Jeff Masten, a conservation burial expert in North Carolina.
Kelly Howard is the main aquamationist at Tranquility, a Wilmington, North Carolina, aquamation facility. Howard said the environmental benefits were a large part of why she became involved in the industry. Even after working at Tranquility for almost a year, she still feels surprised.
Specifically, the PH levels in the wastewater from each aquamation suprises Howard. After each session, she tests the water that drains from the aquamation system into the wastewater.
“The pH is a healthier level than it is when it comes out of your tap,” she said.
The environmental benefits are the main reason Anglican archbishop and anti-apartheid campaigner Desmond Tutu chose the aquamation process, a choice that has brought considerable attention to the process at the beginning of 2022.
A meandering history
The aquamation process was originally patented in 1888 for the “treatment of bones and animal waste or refuse generally for the purpose of rendering the same more suited for fertilizing purposes, and for obtaining gelatin, glue, and size.”
In 1994, two professors at Albany Medical College–Dr. Gordon Kaye and Dr. Peter Weber –modernized the process. They created a company called WR2 and were granted a patent for their alkaline hydrolysis machines for animals, a process they discovered after searching for a cost-effective means of animal disposal where they could safely put remains directly down the drain. The process essentially decontaminates the tissues of animals — protecting against the spread of diseases that can be deadly to both animals and humans.
“Since they knew that animals were 65% water already, they contemplated the idea of using alkali to dissolve the animals into liquid,” wrote Joseph Wilson, a former WR2 employee.
In 2005, WR2 sold the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota the first single body alkaline hydrolysis machine for humans put into commercial use. The Mayo Clinic’s Department of Anatomy uses an alkaline hydrolysis based method in order to dispose of their donated cadavers and uses this fact to appeal to future donors and their families.
WR2 went bankrupt in 2006 after trying to branch out into the European market. But later that same year, former WR2 CEO Joe Wilson took off with the idea, creating his own company—Bio-Response Solutions.
Today, Bio-Response Solutions is one of the largest distributors of alkaline hydrolysis machines worldwide. They also specialize in creating technology for laboratory waste disposal, funeral home aquamations, and agricultural disposal. They have grown to 10 employees and generate about $2.29 million in sales.
“We do business worldwide,” said Wilson. “We have human machines in South Africa, Mexico, some in Canada and several bio-waste and pet machines across the world too,” he added.
North Carolina on the scene
Despite the fact that aquamation can benefit the planet, it’s still not a common process. In fact, human aquamation is only legal in 20 out of the 50 states, according to Funerals Online.
North Carolina is one of these 20, having legalized human aquamation in 2018. Eric Bester owns the only two facilities that perform the process in the state.
He decided to join the funeral business in his senior year of high school, leading him to mortuary school in Cincinnati, Ohio. After graduating, Bester bought his first funeral home in Arizona at 26-years-old. He surprised himself a few years later when he realized he missed the East Coast.
He bought the Clay-Barnette funeral home in Shelby, NC in 2002 and moved back.
From the outside, Clay-Barnette looks like a typical funeral home. The bright, white building has a hearse out front and an American flag blowing in the wind near the front doorway.
It might come as a surprise that this small-town funeral home is one of few locations across the country performing aquamations.
When he took over, Bester wanted to do something new with the business, and the first thing he thought of was pets. He figured pet cremation was a great way to build connections with the community, due to the power of the human-animal bond. But he wanted to add another element as well — aquamation — a process he had admired since first learning about it.
It worked out, because at that time, only pet aquamation was legal in NC.
“The burning cremation process is very destructive, and I’ve never liked it. But burial or typical cremation is all we’ve ever had really. Aquamation is a new thing for people,” Bester said.
Looking back, Bester is sure bringing pet aquamation to Clay-Barnette was one of the best business decisions he ever made. The town quickly adapted and people began to seek out aquamation for pets. So, in 2018, when human aquamation was legalized in NC, the Shelby population was already accustomed to the unusual process. Even better, they trusted Bester to do the job.
“I can’t tell you how many people I’ve had in my three and a half years of doing pets that have come back for the human side, and they had no relationship with the funeral home before,” he said.
The first word Bester uses to describe the aquamation process is gentle.
The gentle nature is what drew Sherry Dunn, a resident of Shelby NC, to the process.
On March 3, 2022 Sherry’s husband Scott woke up at 5:30 in the morning. He was coughing uncontrollably, and Sherry rushed him to the hospital. He was 60, and struggled with atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) for many years. Scott passed away later that same day.
A few days later, Sherry called Clay-Barnette Funeral Home. It made sense because it was the closest to their home. The man over the phone asked the question plainly: “Do you prefer aquamation or cremation?”
Sherry had no idea. As the man over the phone explained the processes to her, she knew the water-based method was what she wanted.
The thought of fire cremation made her cringe. The notion of her husband’s body below the earth made her shudder. Aquamation intrigued her
“To me, water symbolizes cleansing and you end up with pure white ashes after aquamation, and that to me signifies purity,” Sherry said.
Scott didn’t like to talk about death, but she likes to think that he would have preferred aquamation to burning or being put in the ground.
Slow to Catch On
Why is a small town in North Carolina offering human aquamations when the same process can’t be found in a major metropolis like New York City?
Society still views the process as “unusual,” despite aquamation being around since the 80s. Minnestoa was the first state to legalize human aquamation in 2003, opening up the law for the Mayo Clinic to use alkaline hydrolysis for their donated body program.
The process moved to the funeral home industry in 2011, with a location in Florida according to the Cremation Association.
There are misconceptions about the process. When the uniformed hear alkaline hydrolysis is an “acid bath,” they assume it isn’t a gentle process, says Eric Bester. He’s encountered this idea mainly duet to competitor marketing — local funeral home owners who offer cremation discouraging customers from switching over to aquamation.
“They’re gonna do anything to create fear in people’s minds, and they are the ones that talk about us boiling bodies and say ‘oh, it’s just an acid bath.’ You know, the water never boils and it’s not acids in the water,” said Bester.
There is also religious opposition—mainly from Catholic churches who don’t approve.
For instance, “In 2011, Donald Cardinal Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington and then chairman of The Committee on Doctrine of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), determined it ‘unnecessarily disrespectful of the human body,’” according to information from the Archdiocese of St. Louis.
Similarly, in 2013 as the Ohio legislature debated legalizing alkaline hydrolysis with HB 481, the Catholic Conference of Ohio “formally opposed HB. 481 in a letter which included the following inflammatory statement: ‘Dissolving bodies in a vat of chemicals and pouring the resultant liquid down the drain is not a respectful way to dispose of human remains,’” according to the Ohio Funeral Directors Association.
Kelly Howard ran into religious barriers recently at Tranquility, the Wilmington aquamation facility. A client came in to discuss aquamation with her, sharing that her family was Mormon and needed to be cremated or buried in temple garments.
When Howard told the woman that it isn’t possible to aquamate a body in clothes, she was disappointed. noting that her faith wouldn’t allow for the process. Traditionally, the Jewish faith discourages cremation as do followers of Islam according to the Neptune Society.
Another source of opposition comes from those who—like crematoriums—will lose business due to aquamation. The casket industry has pushed back considerably. In 2015, the IndyStar reported that Indiana Representative Dick Hamm was pushing against a bill to legalize aquamation. In a speech, Hamm stoked fear, saying, “Now we’re going to put them in acid and just let them dissolve away and then we’re going to let them run down the drain out into the sewers and whatever.”
Yet it soon came to light that the representative owned two casket businesses. He was the only representative to speak against it. The bill never passed.
Legalization remains slow as supporters must make changes at the state level.
Eric Bester explains that for the process to be legalized, it needs an advocate to move it through the state legislature. “So, if someone’s really not interested in it, then no one really cares if it gets introduced and passes or not,” he says.
Where does this leave us?
Ten years ago, a survey conducted by the Sydney Morning Herald found 68 percent of over 2,000 people surveyed were open to aquamation.
Since then, a 2019 National Funeral Directors Association study reported that “over half (59.2%) of respondents said they would prefer a cremation for their own funeral,” pointing to the increasing public openness to cremation.
Yet, in this same study, researchers reported that only “7.5% of respondents were even aware of alkaline hydrolysis, and only 32.4% would consider it while 36.8% said they would need more information in order to make a decision,” underscoring that the biggest challenge facing advocates is educating the public about the process
As the environmental benefits continue to become publicized, and people like Drew Sorrells elect aquamation for loved ones, perhaps more families will contribute their loved ones “aqua-mains” to a regeneration cycle in the Earth.
“If everybody on the planet did this, it would make such a huge difference in how we are treating the earth,” says Sorrells.
