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Discover the people and the projects trying to make the world a better place

Discover the people and the projects trying to make the world a better place.

Discover the people and the projects trying to make the world a better place.

A weekly programme looking at common challenges around the world and the creative ways people are trying to tackle them.

Presenter Myra Anubi speaks to reporters, experts and innovators to investigate how effective different solutions are, share their successes and inspire listeners with what is possible.

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People Fixing The World: Greener In Death

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Greener In Death

02/05/2017 GMT

BBC World Service - People Fixing The World, Greener In Death

How “water cremation” offers a new way of dealing with dead bodies.

How alkaline hydrolysis – or “water cremation” – offers a greener way of dealing with the body after death.

This is a story about what happens to your body after you die. In many countries, the current options are burial and cremation, but, both methods come with significant environmental impacts.  We’re running out of space for burial in many places, and cremation carries the risk of toxins and greenhouse gases being released. For World Hacks, Sahar Zand travels to the US, where they’re using a new process to deal with the dead. It’s been called “green cremation,” “water cremation” or “resomation” and uses alkaline hydrolysis to mimic and accelerate the breakdown of tissue that would occur in burial. Those who invented the process say it’s an environmentally friendly way to address this fundamental moment in the human life-cycle, but does the evidence stack up?

Reporter: Sahar Zand
Presenter Mukul Devichand

Image: A resomation machine / Credit: BBC

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