Bill Advances to Senate, Approval Expected

Taken from the May 13, 2010, edition of the Memorial Business Journal

Sacramento – Last week the California State Assembly unanimously approved A.B. 2283, which would amend the state’s Health and Safety code to change the definition of cremation to include alkaline hydrolysis, a “chemical dissolution process using heat, high pressure water, and potassium hydroxide to hydrolyze human tissue and the consumable container.”

Introduced by Assemblyman Jeff Miller, the bill has been advanced to the state senate for consideration. If approved, California would join Florida, Maine and Oregon as states that have taken legislative action to permit the process for the general public. A number of other states, including Minnesota and Colorado, permit the practice for institutional procedures, such as the disposition of cadavers at medical and veterinary schools. Meantime, a number of states are having the conversation about amending their laws to include the process in their approved methods of disposition of human remains. Some states argue that while the process isn’t officially “legal” in their states for public consumption, it isn’t illegal either. Meaning a business could test the waters and seek to install a facility following the licensing and permit process currently on the books.

The California bill also instructs the state’s Cemetery and Funeral Bureau to adopt regulations for the safe operation of alkaline hydrolysis chambers no later than July 1, 2011.

Robert J. Achermann, executive director of the California Funeral Directors Association, which supported the bill, noted that there is no opposition to the A.B. 2283 and he does not expect there to be any problem getting the bill through the state senate and signed by the governor.

“The association has had meetings with Miller’s office about some of the technical issues about how you define the process,” Achermann said. “I think most funeral directors believe this is something that will generate consumer interest as an alternative to traditional cremation.” Another consideration in the state — cemeteries in California, especially near the major metropolitan areas, are running short on space.

Supporters call alkaline hydrolysis, which is also referred to as bio-cremation, Resomation or water resolution, a “greener” alternative to traditional cremation. The process itself reportedly uses about less than 20 percent of the energy used for a cremation. Further, CO2 emissions are reduced by nearly 90 percent and the process avoids putting mercury and other harmful contaminants into the atmosphere.

Basically, a body is placed into a stainless steel container with potassium hydroxide (a form of lye) and heated to more than 300 degrees F. Turbulence is used to accelerate the dissolving of flesh and soft tissue. Usually the process takes, on average, about three or four hours. What’s left is a sterile liquid substance containing amino acids, peptides, sugars and salts that are purportedly environmentally friendly and can be washed down the drain. The remaining bone fragments are whiter in appearance than those that are cremated. The bones are then pulverized into a fine white, ash-like substance and can be returned to the family.

“I am told there are no discharge issues, it is a process that has been used in Europe for some time,” Achermann said. “But being California the environment is always at the forefront.”

Assemblyman Miller was approached with the idea by a funeral director, Chris Miller (no relation), owner of Thomas Miller Mortuary in the assemblyman’s home district of Corona. Chris Miller also approached the state association to lobby to have the law changed.

Eye on the Process

The forward progress in California has turned a spotlight on the process as a whole. The technology evolved out of necessity in Europe as the high volume of cremation in densely populated areas compelled nations to put limits on the emissions. The first application of alkaline hydrolysis to be used for processing human remains in the United States took place in 1998 at the University of Florida, Gainesville, to dispose of medical school cadavers. The second system, also for institutional purposes, was in 2005 at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

Currently, there are no funeral homes offering alkaline hydrolysis as a means of disposing of human remains in the United States. The first commercial application of the process is scheduled to be installed this summer by Matthews International, which partnered with a Scottish firm, Resomation Ltd. in 2008. The location of the unit, pending final approvals of the necessary permits, is at the Anderson-McQueen Family Tribute Center in St. Petersburg, Fla., which will be a showcase for the use and application of bio-cremation for the public.

According to Steve Schaal, division manager for sales and marketing of Matthews Cremation, Apopka, Fla., the opening of the facility is just a few months away. “The emission test data and technical solution are in the hands of the local St. Petersburg Waste Water authorities,” he said. “We believe we’ve thoroughly answered every technical requirement and anticipate approvals within the next few months. Because it’s the first in the world within a funeral home, we’re going where no other company has gone.”

Matthews and BioSAFE Engineering, Brownsburg, Ind., are two of just a handful of firms in the United States to offer the equipment. Another competitor, CycledLife, Denver, unveiled its prototype vessel this month. Transition Science, a Toronto-based company is the licensed distributor of Resomation in Canada. That country’s first bio-cremation system is currently being installed in Toronto.

A Significant Investment

Where alkaline hydrolysis accelerates the decomposition process, there is not likely to be much acceleration in the legislative pace even as a number of states are currently discussing the process. However, once the conversation advances past the legal hurdles (no small task especially if you are talking about introducing any liquid remains into a sanitary sewer system), getting into the alkaline hydrolysis business is not an inexpensive investment. Equipment ranges in price from $200,000 to $400,000, which is about 3 to 5 times the cost of a traditional cremation retort.

However, the alkaline hydrolysis chambers may offer savings in other areas. In California, for example, funeral homes or crematories investing in the technology would not be required to acquire air emission permits, which is an expensive, time-consuming process, Achermann said. Manufacturers suggest that the alkaline hydrolysis vessel offers lower maintenance than a traditional retort, which has to be rebricked after so many hours.

With Matthews manufacturing both traditional cremation retorts and bio-cremation vessels, Schaal commented on the maintenance issue. “Since there is no refractory, there would be none of these costs for floors, walls or ceiling,” he said, adding that since the interior is all stainless steel, the occasional bath rinse is required. 

“The biggest maintenance we initially see is the door seal, which would be monitored and replaced probably once per year with an annual inspection,” Schaal said. “The material cost is probably less than $50 so we view this as a direct saving to owners/operators.”

David Nixon, Nixon Consulting, Chatham, Ill., said that the technology is still too new to have a solid compilation of data. “A traditional retort will have to rebrick after so many hours,” he said. “But we don’t know what the long-term picture is. Until a history of data is developed, maintenance of the alkaline hydrolysis chambers is speculative. Five or 10 years down the road we will find out what the maintenance issues are.”

Maine and Oregon revised their crematory and licensing rules in late 2009. So far, neither state has a working facility nor is one planned. “I don’t think any are in the formative phase,” said Sally Belanger, executive director of the Maine Funeral Directors Association, “Word of such activities would travel fast through Maine,” she added. Last fall Maine revised its definition of cremation to include “The technical process, using direct flame and heat, or other process, that reduces human remains to bone fragments. The reduction takes place through heat and evaporation, or through other processes, including, but not limited to, chemical dissolution.”

More than 60 percent of the deaths per year in Oregon are cremated. Mark Stehn, executive director of the Oregon Funeral Directors Association, said the association did support last year’s effort amend ORS 692 which allows the state’s Mortuary & Cemetery Board to license new and emerging technology, if it meets the permit requirement within the county.

To the north, Jewell Steffensen, executive secretary of the Washington State Funeral Directors Association, said that a process to review changes to the law to allow alkaline hydrolysis is underway. Steffensen said a letter was sent to the Department of Licensing, Funeral & Cemetery Division by Matthews International asking what type of requirements would be needed in order to have a unit installed in a funeral home in Washington. “In April the board members met for their regular meeting in which I attended,” Steffensen said. “They moved to form a committee with stakeholders to review what changes, if any, to the Revised Code of Washington and/or the Washington Administrative Code would be needed to regulate the bio-cremation system. All of them felt that this would eventually pass.”

Neither the National Funeral Directors Association nor the International Cemetery, Cremation & Funeral Association have adopted a position on the alkaline hydrolysis process. “We see it as another disposition option from which families may choose, in addition to earth burial, entombment in a mausoleum or cremation,” said Jessica Koth, NFDA public relations manager. “The only challenge that might exist for an individual or family that wants to select alkaline hydrolysis for themselves or a loved one is availability – it is not something that is generally available to consumers.’

Koth added that NFDA encourages further study of the alkaline hydrolysis process to fully understand its impact on the environment and the health and safety of funeral professionals and communities.

However, the Cremation Association of North America has recognized alkaline hydrolysis as a form of disposition that is similar to cremation and is including it as a variant of the cremation process. “Our recently revised Model Cremation Law speaks of the ‘mechanical and/or thermal or other dissolution process that reduces human remains to bone fragments,’ which is certainly includes alkaline hydrolysis,” said John Ross, CANA executive director. “Further, the application of heat remains a factor given that the solution is heated to 400 degrees F.”

As for the legislative process in California, Achermann said the legislature will adjourn Aug. 31. After that the governor has 39 days to sign the bills on his desk, so the outcome will be known by late September, if not sooner.

Despite California taking care of the leg work in preparation of the new technology, Dan Isard, president of The Foresight Companies, Phoenix, said alkaline hydrolysis is “at least 10 years away from the real world. The investment is huge and ultimately the consumer is going to pay for it,” he said. “Very few eco-consumers are going to pay 400 to 600 percent more for alkaline hydrolysis rather than a cremation. State law allowing it and consumers and professionals understanding it is a long way away, if it ever comes to be.”

Preparing for the Next Wave

As individuals live more environmentally conscious lives, the more likely these feelings will continue into how they are remembered with baby boomers once again leading the charge. The development of the alkaline hydrolysis process comes on the heels of a move toward burial in “green” cemeteries where the bodies are not embalmed and a buried in a biodegradable container such as a wicker basket and lowered into the ground.

“Green proponents will get laws passed to permit alkaline hydrolysis, I mean, who would dare argue against being green?” asked Mike Kubasak, Kubasak Associates, Mesquite, Nev. He commented on what he called an amazing turn of events over the last 40 years. “In the 1970s, cremation was being pushed by some people because they saw earth burial as a threat to the environment,” he said. “Now, it’s cremation, or fossil-fuel cremation being touted as the threat to the environment”

With only about 10 percent of the United States even legally allowed to offer alkaline hydrolysis, the best thing that a funeral director can do, in the words of one funeral director, is keep your ear to the ground.

“The reason that I keep my ear to the ground, and I may have to keep it there a long time, is I don’t want to be too quick to discount any new idea, because you hate to make the mistakes of the past like when it came to cremation,” said John Williams, funeral director with Farley Funeral Homes and Crematory, with locations in Venice, North Port and Englewood, Fla. Williams, who is also president of the Florida Funeral Directors Association, said that for a long time as consumer interest in cremation was growing, the funeral profession “kept their heads in the sand for so long, [and] really kind of missed the opportunity to embrace what people wanted and master it, perfect it and do right by people.”

Nixon agrees. “Funeral directors can’t abdicate their duty to be knowledgeable and informed like they did with cremation,” he said. “It is kind of like the green movement, if funeral directors aren’t at least informed or aware they will be passed by.”

According to Joe Sehee, executive director of the Green Burial Council, Santa Fe, N.M., funeral directors need to be able to present these offerings to the public and stand behind whatever is being purported. “We shouldn’t be judging,” Sehee said. “That was the mistake that was made trying to diminish cremation as being a less than decent form of disposition. It didn’t do families or the funeral service community any good. That is why I think that green burial is being treated with kid gloves to some degree. If the market wants this, it is going to get it so we shouldn’t stand in the way of it.”

Alkaline hydrolysis offers the same service options as with traditional burial or flame base cremation. Schaal noted that meaningful and appropriate services must remain front and center in the educational process. “We see bio-cremation offering the same platform for creative services but the education will remain in the hands of the funeral professional,” he said. “With bio-technology, it will not consume a traditional casket (burial or cremation) so the requirement of a specially made ‘rental insert’ is necessary. Matthews has designed a stainless steel insert that fits into any rental casket that will allow for visitation and can go directly from the rental into the Bio cremator.”

Curt Rostad, executive director of the Indiana Funeral Directors Association, said he could only assume that the memorialization component will be identical. “Those funeral directors that have done a good job showing that cremation is not ‘instead of a funeral’ will do a good job with hydrolysis too.”

To illustrate his point, Rostad recalled a newspaper article he saw where a funeral director commented on the effect of the recession on the funeral business. The funeral director said: “Some people can’t afford a funeral so they are choosing cremation.” Said Rostad, “That’s the guy that is in trouble regardless of the process used.”

Williams said he is not sure whether alkaline hydrolysis is going to have a mainstream appeal or will become a kind of a boutique way to appeal to a niche of folks. Regardless, he said funeral directors need to learn from the mistakes made when cremation was starting to gain in popularity and have the conversation with any interested families.

“Funeral service forgot to include as part of the story where the memorialization process plays into it,” Williams said. “They got fixated on the actual disposition and not what leads up to it. The meaning and the value was never on the table during the discussion.”

Williams said that some funeral homes will make the investment in alkaline hydrolysis right off the bat and he will be watching very closely. “A lot of our efforts and energies will continue to go into talking about the meaning and the value of the funeral and memorialization,” Williams said. “We’ll put more of our eggs in that basket than we are in the actual process of crematory vs. bio-cremation.”

First Ones in the Pool

The first ones in the pool to offer alkaline hydrolysis will be setting the bar on pricing — taking into account the size of their investment, the likely number of families interested in the process and competition, among other factors. Nixon believes that the early entrants into the market should adopt high-end pricing, considering the risks associated with cremation (fire or water) are higher than for earth burial. “They are going to have to recoup the initial investment,” he said. “If operators are smart they will charge accordingly and try to recoup their investment. It is going to take quite a while to get a return on investment of that magnitude. I think you price it high to start with, especially if you are the only one in the area. ”

Rostad sees little choice for funeral homes that invest in the technology other than to base initial pricing on costs. “Right now, the major cost is in equipment,” he said. “I understand [the number] of man hours required [for the process] is similar and the cost of gas vs. chemicals is within a few dollars of each other. If public acceptance of the process grows and the units become more mass produced, we can expect the cost to eventually come down so maybe the costs will be comparable.”

But therein lies the real question: What level of public acceptance will this method receive? Rostad believes that alkaline hydrolysis will have a public relations or public perception issue. “I’ve heard it referred to as the ‘yuck’ factor,” he said. “Cremation has a historical basis. Even though much of that history has a negative context, that has largely been overcome and it is widely accepted here and abroad. Some even view the return of the elements back to nature in the form of fire to be spiritual or comforting.

“But hydrolysis has no history while flame is acceptable to a lot of people,” Rostad continued. “It’s a little harder to put into acceptable terminology that their loved one is going to being dissolved and put down the drain, or as some suggest, recycled as fertilizer.”

Robert Fells, external chief operating officer and general counsel for ICCFA, concurred with Rostad’s point. “If the proponents want this method to advance, they should develop an accurate summary of what happens,” Fells said. “Even with traditional cremation, consumers are not necessarily aware of the ‘pulverizing’ part. I think consumer disclosure would be key where alkaline hydrolysis is offered. Providers could be running a risk of potential liability by not disclosing how the process works. In other words, ‘I didn’t know you were going to do that to Mom!’”

Nixon said that funeral homes not interested in the alkaline hydrolysis would describe the process much differently than those who are. “The people who don’t have a unit will combat a competitor with a unit, they will be using the word ‘flush’ in reference to the liquid remains going down the drain,” he said. “The idea of flushing grandma down the drain isn’t a pretty picture.”

Brad Crain, president of BioSAFE Engineering, knows what to expect from opponents of the process. “Naysayers will make it sound pretty gruesome,” Crain said. “We’re returning organic components of the body back to the ecosystem just like nature intended. Ashes to ashes — we’re accelerating the natural decomposition.”

Schaal said he views alkaline hydrolysis as a form of cremation. “But instead of the catalyst being nature or propane fuel, the catalyst is 95 percent water with 5 percent potassium hydroxide. 

“We’re providing our funeral professionals an option for the cremation consumer who wants a more environmental process that lowers greenhouse gases, lowers the use of natural resources, etc.,” Schaal added. “I think it’s fascinating that at least in my 20-plus years in funeral service, we’re talking about providing a service that is actually relevant in today’s market. Normally we are several steps behind the consumer but with this opportunity, we are step in step.”  

Schaal said that in Matthews’ consumer research completed last fall, the overwhelming majority recognizes that in order to be environmentally driven — it comes with a price. “We see this bio-cremation service coming with a premium over traditional flame because of the capital investment. In our research, we found the tipping point for the consumer who would pay a premium for a ‘direct cremation’ was at roughly +$500. They made it clear that the environmental advantages must be spelled out within the education so that they can justify needing to spend more. If the environmental advantages are +10 percent but the cost is +50 percent, the math doesn’t work. We need to remain respectful with the expectations.”