Resomation founder Sandy Sullivan and Water Cremation Aotearoa founder Deborah Richards, at the Kindly Earth facility near Durham in England. Photo: Supplied/Deborah Richards
New Zealand's first water crematorium is opening in Christchurch on Friday, giving people a new option for what happens to their body after they die.
Water cremation, also called alkaline hydrolysis or resomation, was used in several countries as an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional cremation.
It involves a body being put into a tube containing 95 percent water and five percent alkaline, and heated up and pressurised for about four hours.
The remains are then given back to the relatives, while the water is treated and put back into the water cycle.
Christchurch Water Crematorium director Debbie Richards said it had been a long battle to get the process approved in New Zealand.
"After working on this for more than seven years, we are thrilled to be able to offer water cremation as a far more environmentally sustainable end-of-life choice," she said.
The project is a partnership between Water Cremation Aotearoa and funeral service provider Bell, Lamb and Trotter.
Richards said the water cremation process produced no carbon emissions.
"Anything not of the body - such as pacemakers and implants remain behind, clean and intact, and can be recycled. The bones that remain after the process is complete can be returned to the family as bones or white ash, it is their choice," she said.
A single traditional flame cremation produced about 180 to 240kg of carbon emissions, Richards said.
"I think that those people that want to tread more lightly and leave less of a footprint environmentally, and are concerned about carbon emission and want to do something about climate change, they will find this appealing," she said.
"A lot of people perceive it as gentler than flame cremation as well so for those reasons I think people will definitely choose it."
Richards said the water cremation service was being offered for $1350.
"We're offering it just through Bell, Lamb and Trotter at the moment. It works out as a little bit cheaper than a flame cremation and one of the reasons for that is that there's no casket required. We can't put a casket inside a resomater, we can only put things that are protein based," she said.
"We wrap a body in some beautiful New Zealand wool, we've got that from Wisewool up in Gisborne where they have the sheep and they make the beautiful blanketing that we wrap people in as a shroud."
Bell, Lamb and Trotter managing director Andrew Bell said this new technology was a significant development for the funeral industry.
"Bell, Lamb and Trotter was the first company in the country to introduce embalming in 1896 and then flame cremation became available in 1909 which is probably the last time something so noteworthy has happened in the funeral services sector," he said.
Bell said with about 80 percent of the company's clients choosing cremation over burial, he believed water cremation would have wide appeal.
Christchurch Mayor Phil Mauger will formally open the water crematorium at Bell, Lamb and Trotter's St Asaph Street site on Friday.
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