New idea in mortuary science: Dissolving bodies with lye

May 8, 2008 By NORMA LOVE, Associated Press Writer
New idea in mortuary science: Dissolving bodies with lye (AP)

Brad Crain, president of BioSafe Engineering, stands by one of the company's steel cylinders in Brownsburg, Ind. Monday April 7, 2008. Since they first walked the planet, humans have either buried or burned their dead. Now a new option using one of these cyclinders is generating interest: dissolving bodies. (AP Photo Michael Conroy)

(AP) -- Since they first walked the planet, humans have either buried or burned their dead. Now a new option is generating interest - dissolving bodies in lye and flushing the brownish, syrupy residue down the drain.


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nilbud
May 08, 2008

Rank: 3 / 5 (2)
Wow, making death worse, now that's progress.
wellfeded
May 08, 2008

Rank: 3 / 5 (2)
Don't dump it down the drain, make biodiesel out of it!
thecajun
May 08, 2008

Rank: 3 / 5 (2)
If the wastewater makes it to the drinking water source (likely here in LA) then we're all cannibals.
DeeSmith
May 08, 2008

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Put a recycling system on the tail end (just say 'no' to flushing caustic into the public wastewater treatment system), and this just might be the wave of the future for human remains disposal.
Graeme
May 09, 2008

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At least the waste water should have been converted to a fertilizer. Another source of noxious pollution if it is tipped in the drain.
Zig158
May 09, 2008

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Didn't the mafia invent this one? A 55-gallon drum, lye and a heat source make all your bullet ridden body problems go away. What was Saddam thinking with all those mass graves?
zevkirsh
May 09, 2008

Rank: 1 / 5 (1)
the real problem with this, is that lye is expensive at times, and when someone wants to save money they'll just throw like 4-5 boddies in the same batch and you'll have corpse stew. that's gross enough to turn people off. cremation for some reason doesn't freak people out as much, perhaps because there's no goop left over, just some dry dust.
Rank 3.7 /5 (14 votes)
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