An Australian company is offering a watery alternative to cremation or burial, using a process it says ''totally eliminates pollution''.

Aquamation Industries chief executive John Humphries says the process, called alkaline hydrolysis, replicates the way animals return to nature if buried without a coffin in the soil.

He says the new technology uses a combination of water, heat and alkalinity to speed up Mother Nature's decomposition process.

"The same process is occurring here except that we put [the body] into a six-foot cylinder, we put the water in there, we've got a pump that swirls the water around," he told ABC News Online.

"We heat the water up - we don't boil it - and we raise the pH level, so what would occur in nature in six months occurs in four hours."

The end result is a pile of ashes which can then be presented to relatives.

Mr Humphries says the process costs about the same as cremation, but without the 200 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions.

"It totally eliminates pollution. It only uses about 5 to 10 per cent of the energy [used by cremation]," he said.

Mr Humphries says for families farewelling their loved ones, the experience will be similar to a cremation, with the traditional funeral ceremony remaining.

"But instead of going into an incinerator, [the body] will go into a stainless steel tube of water," he said. "You will still be given ashes after the process."

Mr Humphries says alkaline hydrolysis was discovered in America by scientists looking to destroy mad cow disease.

"When cows die of mad cow disease, burning the bodies would not kill the disease," he said.

"The scientists found the only way to kill the disease is nature, with alkaline hydrolysis."

Mr Humphries says the process has now become the standard in America and Europe for disposing of diseased animals, but has never before been used for human bodies.

Something new

Warwick Hansen, vice-president of the Australian Funeral Directors Association, says industry is open to new technologies, especially environmentally friendly ones.

"We do what families want us to do and when these units become fully operational, if the families want to use them then that's fine," he said.

"It is another alternative that is available and I know our members would only be too willing to assist people in any way they want to go.

"Certainly there is a move in every facet of our industry where people are wanting to move towards greener practices."

According to Mr Hansen, bodies are cremated in about two-thirds of deaths in Australia.

"The balance are normally burials - there are now vertical burials that are taking place in Victoria, there are burials at sea and things of that nature," he said.

"When cremation first started back in 1924, the sun wasn't going to come up that day, it was terrible, it was horrible.

"But here we are 86 years later and two-thirds of all Australians are cremated.

"Things have changed and this is something new.''