California just made it legal to liquefy a corpse

Water cremation, or alkaline hydrolysis, is an eco-friendly alternative to traditional forms of dealing with the dead, like burial or flame cremation. Water cremation, or alkaline hydrolysis, is an eco-friendly alternative to traditional forms of dealing with the dead, like burial or flame cremation. Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images Image 1 of / 42 Caption Close California just made it legal to liquefy a corpse 1 / 42 Back to Gallery

As early as 2020, Californians will be able to pursue a new option for end-of-life remains: water cremation.

On Sunday, Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 967, a controversial bill that's been making the rounds around the nation over the last several years. It makes it legal to dispose of human remains through a process commonly referred to as water cremation (or alkaline hydrolysis, aquamation or bio-cremation).

Despite its name, water cremation does not involve flushing a dead body down the toilet or drowning it in hot water. In fact, it's more of a bath. The body is put in a steel, pod-like vat and bathed in alkaline solution for about four hours.

All that's left afterward are the clean, natural bones, which are crushed into ashes and returned to the family. The alkaline solution simply accelerates the ecosystem's natural breakdown of a body.

According to Matt Baskerville, a funeral director in Illinois who uses alkaline hydrolysis, the consistency of ashes is different, too. Unlike the coarse and dense texture of ashes post-flame cremation, flameless cremation gives the final production (of the human body) a consistency of ivory powdered sugar. It also doesn't require any implants that would normally explode in flame cremation, like pacemakers or other titanium, to be removed beforehand.

Baskerville said that the process produces 20-30 percent more ashes than flame cremation.

The process is on the front lines of a major movement to "green-ify" death. There is growing concern over the carbon footprint that both the burial and standard cremation processes leave in their wake. Cities are running out of burial space and many of the materials used in burials — including the embalming liquids and caskets — have toxic effects on the environment.

According to a 2016 report from the National Funeral Directors Association, more people used cremation than burial in 2015, and that number has grown over time. But eco-advocates say regular flame cremation isn't the greatest when it comes to the environment either.

Joe Wilson, the CEO of Bio-Response Solutions — a company that specializes in liquid cremation — told Seeker earlier this year that the energy used in just one flame cremation could heat a house in Minnesota for a whole week in the winter.

An average of 300 gallons of water, depending on the manufacturer, is used per human body during water cremation.

"Granted, you're using water, however, you're not using a fossil fuel and you're not putting a carbon emission into the sky," Baskerville said. It's definitely a cleaner and greener option than the traditional flame cremation."

Baskerville says it's often alkaline hydrolysis's name, not the process, that scares some consumers off, but that the response across his four funeral homes has been overwhelmingly positive.

Other organizations, like the Catholic Church and other religious groups, are still wary about whole-heartedly approving water cremation as an end-of-life method.

Monica Williams, the director of cemeteries for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, said that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has been following the issue for quite a while and is still in conversation about if the process aligns with their standards of dignity for the human body.

However, Williams added, Catholic cemeteries of the Archdiocese of San Francisco will bury the remains of deceased Catholics, regardless of their choice.

California will join the some 14 other states where liquid cremation is already legal, including Idaho, Colorado and Florida.