A look at aquamation — cremation by water instead of fire — in Canada

If you've heard of alkaline hydrolysis (AH), or aquamation, perhaps it was after the death of anti-apartheid leader Desmond Tutu late last year. At his request, his body was disposed of using the process: South Africa is one of a handful of countries where it's currently practised. 

AH is actually a form of cremation that, instead of fire, uses water mixed with an alkali (such as potassium hydroxide) in a stainless steel cylinder. The mixture is then heated to about 95 C for up to eight hours or 150 C for up to 18 hours (depending on if it's a low-temperature or high-temperature machine) and dissolves all of the body's tissues. First developed in 1888 to break down animal carcasses on farms and turn them into fertilizer, the method helped to safely process the bodies of livestock affected by mad cow disease in the '90s. Since then, it's been used to dispose of human and pet remains.

Today, AH is being discussed as an environmentally aware choice since it's considered more environmentally sound for various reasons. 

Like traditional cremation, it's considered greener than burial because there's no need for embalming chemicals or a casket. Aquamation is a longer process than flame-based cremation — which usually takes less than four hours — and it requires electricity to heat water for many hours, plus the process requires around 1,300 litres of water. But it uses significantly less energy than flame-based cremation (approximately 80 to 90 per cent less, according to Anora Cremation, Burial & Events in B.C.), and the latter emits almost 800,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually in the U.S. alone. AH also leaves any plastic and metal untouched, whereas with traditional cremation, those cavity fillings and replacement hips create toxic emissions when they go up in smoke. The end result of AH is a sterile liquid — the colour of light tea and devoid of DNA and RNA — which, like the fluids produced from embalming, go into the sewer system.   

In parts of Canada, the practice has been allowed since 2012, when Saskatchewan became the first province to offer it, followed by Ontario in 2014, Quebec in 2015, the Northwest Territories in 2020 and Newfoundland just last year. However, some government authorities still question its safety and environmental benefits. 

Though it's allowed in the province, the Bereavement Authority of Ontario (BAO) at one point revoked the licence of a Newcastle, Ont., funeral home operating a low-temperature machine. The BAO was concerned that low-pressure AH doesn't destroy prions — deviant proteins that can be transmitted and that cause Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. But a study commissioned by the home's owner, Trevor Charbonneau, found the method did eliminate "prion-sized particles." And as mentioned, AH was used in the '90s to dispose of cattle affected by mad cow disease — the European Parliament approved the method precisely because it destroyed prions that traditional cremation didn't.

Christa Ovenell is a B.C.-based funeral director and founder of Death's Apprentice, which offers planning and end-of-life doula services. She's also a member of the AquamationBC Coalition, a group petitioning the province to approve the procedure. In an email, a spokesperson for the province said the government is reviewing the issue and that for the legislation to change, they'd need to consider, among other things, the environmental impact, zoning, safety and licensing. 

However, Ovenell argued: "It could be done with a change to the regulations. There is no definition of the word 'cremation' in the [Cremation, Interment and Funeral Services] Act. So we could simply define it, which is how Saskatchewan attended to this."

Aquamation continues to face obstacles in provinces where it's already practised too. "It's still super complicated for other funeral homes to try and get a machine," said Éric LeSieur, a Quebec funeral director whose family has been in the business for more than 100 years. "It's like starting from scratch in their towns." LeSieur's is the sole funeral home in the province to offer the service. 

Ovenell thinks much of the resistance to AH is due to people's discomfort with talking about death. "I think that new methods of disposition have such an ick factor largely because we don't talk about [death]," she said.

And people are put off when they hear about the mechanics, Ovenell said. "Probably the two most common things I get [about AH] are 'Oh my gosh, are you pouring Granny down the sink?'… or 'It's like Breaking Bad' [the TV show in which a corpse is dissolved] or something," she said. 

Regardless, BAO spokesman David Brazeau said demand for AH remains low in Ontario. "AH as a disposition option has not taken off as some expected it to," he said. "We have only four licensed operators in Ontario and haven't had a new application in years." 

However, Ovenell believes more people would opt for aquamation if they knew about it. "What we keep hearing is that there's no demand," she said. "What I actually believe … is that the decision makers are not actively spending any time in end-of-life conversation spaces.… There's not one [politician] who would like to get up on a platform and say, 'Oh by the way, can we talk about death?'" 

Among religious groups, cremation can be seen as prohibited for Jews (depending on your interpretation of Jewish law) and is banned for Muslims. And though the Vatican allows for cremation and hasn't issued an official directive on aquamation, some leaders in the Catholic Church don't accept the practice. LeSieur has faced pushback from a local representative, though he points out that the Church didn't allow flame-based cremation until 1963; and it's now the method chosen by about 75 per cent of Canadians.

Still, AH now accounts for 98 per cent of the procedures at LeSieur's funeral home. His customer base has tripled, and pre-planning requests have quadrupled. And in this case, it's likely not due to price: he charges about $250 less for AH than traditional cremation. The average price of flame cremation in Canada ranges from less than $1,000 to about $5,000, and aquamation can cost between $500 and $3,000. Both are thousands less than the cost of a burial, especially in cities like Vancouver and Toronto where space is at a premium. 

The interest in aquamation may come back to its place in a growing movement toward greener deaths and at a time of heightened concern for the environment overall. Though they may take getting used to, options like AH, green burials and human composting (available in parts of the U.S. but not yet in Canada), are poised to become the parting method of choice for many who want to lessen their impact, including when they die.