BALTIMORE – It’s almost like a washing machine, if you ask Joseph H. Brown. The coffin-shaped metal tank at Brown’s crematorium in West Baltimore uses hot water, chemicals and a bit of agitation to dissolve human remains, leaving only bones.
The practice, officially known as alkaline hydrolysis, was legalized during this year’s General Assembly session. But the state Board of Morticians and Funeral Directors is still writing regulations that will govern the practice in Maryland, according to its director. There are laws on the books, but no regulations, making it a legal gray area to carry out procedures.
Brown, who installed the system in April, said he does water cremation. He believes he is the first to do so in the country. He paid $5,000, compared to $1,700 for a traditional fire cremation.
“My mother, who is 94-years-old, said – jokingly – ‘Why would anyone pay more for alkaline hydrolysis?'” Brown said. “Let me answer this for you: Some people drive a Mercedes and some people drive a Pinto.”
For his part, Brown insisted he was following the law, which took effect in October. On Thursday, along with Baltimore City Councilman Mark Conway, he invited reporters to a press conference at the funeral home, located in Mondawmin, south of Druid Hill Park.
“I’m a licensed mortician. I’ve done thousands of cremations. Now, I just do it differently,” he said. “Does the Council have a problem with me? Well, they want me to wait for regulation.
Brown joked that if the authorities came to arrest him for doing so, they should “make sure I’m wearing a good suit.” Media coverage can only draw attention to water cremation, he said.
“The publicity is working,” he said.
Erika Malone, the council’s executive director, said the ordinance has not been released and no timeline has been set, but declined to comment further. The Maryland Department of Health, the parent agency for the board, did not immediately comment Friday afternoon.
A large consumer base
Brown’s equipment uses water, ethanol and alkaline chemicals to decompose the body in about three hours, tilting back and forth to agitate the solution, the way a washing machine cleans clothes, he said.
Brown said he spent nearly $1 million on water cremation equipment, which also includes tanks where the water’s pH is reduced from 14 to 12.5 before it is released into the Baltimore City sewer system, and headed to the Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant for treatment. .
For that, they have obtained a permit from the city, Jennifer Combs, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Public Works, said in an email.
According to the North American Cremation Association, leftover water is considered sterile, and contains salts, sugars, amino acids and peptides. No tissue or DNA is left behind after the process is complete.
After this process, the bone fragments are dried for several days before they can be reduced to an ash-like substance, which can be placed in an urn like other cremated remains. The water cremation process actually produces a higher volume of remains than fire cremation, because less material is lost to the ambient air, Brown said.
Brown declined to say whether his funeral home, a family business billed as the oldest African American funeral home in Maryland, had completed its first water cremation, or how many had been completed, saying he did not want to provide “ammunition” to authorities.
“I didn’t do anything illegal. I did something different,” Brown said. “Some people may argue, but I think there are a lot of consumers who would support me providing this service to the state of Maryland – and there’s no way out.”
Lower carbon footprint
Brown called the process a greener option for death treatment. For example, during water cremation, the liquid is heated to 140 degrees Fahrenheit, much colder than boiling.
During the cremation fire, the temperature reaches more than 1,000 degrees, requiring a lot of fuel. Brown’s funeral home uses propane, which has a lower carbon footprint than other fuels such as natural gas. But for water cremation, funeral homes use electric water heaters, which do not require fossil fuels.
At least one traditional crematorium proposal, from Vaughn Greene Funeral Services in North Baltimore, has drawn criticism in Baltimore, in part because of neighbors’ concerns about air emissions from incineration.
Conway, who represents a four-city district, proposed a bill in October that would limit the zoning areas in which crematoria can operate.
“The proposed rezoning is not in opposition to funeral homes or sustainable death care alternatives,” Conway said in a press release. “However, we are opposed to placing human waste incinerators in close proximity to schools, homes, and families. Aquamation provides an environmentally responsible option, and we now support it.
Some mourners see the water cremation process as gentler on the body, making it more agreeable, Brown said.
“Some people prefer water to fire,” Brown said. “Water is very spiritual.”
But not everyone is convinced the trend will continue, just as cremation, once unpopular, has grown to account for about 60% of the death care industry in the United States.
Jack Mitchell, a past president of the National Funeral Directors Association, said he believes that natural organic reduction, where the body is broken down into soil, is possible. This procedure was legalized in Maryland at the same time as alkaline hydrolysis.
“It’s even more environmentally friendly than alkaline hydrolysis, and it’s not icky,” said Jack Mitchell, who is also president of Mitchell-Wiedefeld Funeral Home in Towson. “People like the idea that the soil that is the end result, that is the remains of your mother or the remains of your grandmother, you can use in the garden.”
“When you see that flower growing, you can say, ‘That’s mom,'” Mitchell said.
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