Anti-apartheid Hero : The Anglican archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who died Dec. 26 at age 90, had requested that his funeral not be ostentatious and that his body not be cremated by flame. Instead, Tutu reportedly requested aquamation, or alkaline hydrolysis, a water-based process considered an eco-friendly alternative to traditional cremation.
So after Anti-apartheid Hero Tutu’s remains lay in a simple pine casket during his funeral at St. George’s Cathedral on Saturday, his body was liquefied under pressure and his bones then dried to dusty ashes in an oven.
Aquamation is part of a growing “green burial” movement that avoids non-biodegradable materials and promotes natural decomposition. Advocates say it’s an environmentally friendly alternative to ornate caskets and cremation by fire, which emits greenhouse gases.
South Africa has no legislation specifically covering aquamation. About 20 U.S. states have legalized the process, most over the past decade.
The practice has been little studied outside the funeral industry and environmental groups.
In the United States, aquamation was first adopted in the 1990s by researchers looking for an inexpensive and safe way to discard the remains of animals used in experiments. Around that time, scientists in Japan and Scotland began studying its use for disposing of the carcasses of animals sickened by illnesses such as mad cow diseases, according to Olson.
By the early 2000s, the practice was gaining popularity among veterinarians in the United States. By the following decade, it was being marketed to funeral homes as the technologies improved and interest widened.
Tutu, along with defending human rights, was a champion of the environment and spoke frequently of the perils of climate change, which he once called among the “greatest moral challenges of our time.”
He advocated for boycotts of oil and fossil fuel-producing firms and called for greater investment in clean energy and low-carbon products. He also sought to amplify the voices of young climate activists.
Source : Washington Post
