Michael Day, Health Correspondent, (UK) Telegraph, reports:

An icy alternative to cremation, in which the dead are reduced to powder by freeze-drying, is to be available in Britain within two years.

The ecologically friendly method, which has been invented in Sweden, involves bodies being frozen very quickly then dipped in liquid nitrogen to cool them to minus 196C.

A simple vibration is then used to shatter the extremely brittle body into powder. This is then placed first in a vacuum chamber, which removes the water, then in a metal separator, which removes toxic metal fillings and surgical parts.

The dry, odourless organic remains can then be placed in a small degradable box made of corn starch and buried in a shallow grave. Unlike cremation, the process gives off no damaging fumes.

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The inventors of the technique hope that it will help solve the problems of Britain’s overcrowded graveyards and pollution from crematoria.

Some 600,000 people die in Britain every year and cemeteries and graveyards have reached bursting point. In 10 to 15 years many will have to close to new burials, unless graves are reused or turned into “double-decker” sites.

Cremation - the choice of 70 per cent of Britons - creates pollution. The incineration of bodies with mercury-based tooth fillings has been blamed for creating mercury poisoning, which can attack the nervous system and cause brain damage.

Britain’s 242 crematoria are having to install extra filters at a cost of around 187 million, which is likely add 60 to the funeral bill of around 1,200.

The firm behind the freeze-dried alternative, Promessa Organics, based in Gothenburg, expects to get approval to start next year in Sweden and then bring it to Britain and other European countries.

Susanne Wiigh-Masak, a soil scientist and the firm’s head of operations, said it already had several hundred orders from people in Sweden and around the world who wanted to be freeze-dried.

She said that the cost of the process would be “comparable to that of standard cremation”, around 400. The company hopes that it will particularly appeal to those people seeking an environmentally friendly despatch.

“In less than a year, the boxes and powder would become compost,” Mrs Wiigh-Masak said. “Many people will opt to have a bush or tree planted on their grave.”

“Green” burials are an increasingly popular choice. There are now more than 160 burial sites across Britain where bodies can be buried, unembalmed, in a coffin with a sapling or wooden marker as a memorial.

Mike Jarvis, a spokesman for the Natural Death Centre, said: “We approve of the Swedish idea. It is eco-friendly and it improves people’s choice of what happens to them after they die. Ordinary cremation releases toxic mercury fumes into the environment.”

Among those keen on using the new technique is Patricia Yates, a 69-year-old from Dartmouth, Kent. She would like to have an azalea bush planted on her grave.

“This will turn death into something less forbidding and there’ll even be a positive outcome if I’m helping one of my favourite flowers grow,” she said.

“It’s a much nicer thing than what we have now. Cremation and ordinary burials seem so horrible and depressing. And let’s face it: we’re running out of space. These little coffins would take up a lot less room than normal coffins.”

Dominic Maguire, a spokesman for the National Association of Funeral Directors, said: “Funeral directors will carry out the wishes of the deceased or families whatever they are, as long as they are legal and decent, so I don’t think there would be a problem with this.”

A spokesman for the Home Office said: “We can see no problem with this in terms of burial law.”

The Church of England also welcomed the new technique. “We definitely support environmentally friendly funerals and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be available to people who want them,” a spokesman said. “When firm proposals for such burials arrive, we will of course, study them closely.”

Mrs Wiigh-Masak, 48, is ready to practice what she preaches: one day she hopes to become a white rhododendron. “There’s a special variety that I love with white flowers, which sometimes turn a little pink,” she said. “That would make me happy.”

(Filed: 11/04/2004)