The Columbus Dispatch
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Only burial, traditional cremation approved in Ohio
A Columbus funeral director is in hot water with the state for liquefying bodies instead of cremating or burying them.
Edwards Funeral Service, 1166 Parsons Ave., could be the first funeral home nationwide to employ a process called alkaline hydrolysis that uses heat and lye to render body tissues to liquid. The liquid is then flushed into city sewers, and family members are given crushed bone fragments.
Funeral director Jeff Edwards said he has performed the hydrolysis process, which he calls “aquamation,” on 19 bodies since January and was about to perform his 20th when state officials declared on Thursday that it “is not an authorized form of disposition of a dead human body.”
Read the full article in The Columbus Dispatch
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Update March 24, 2011 – Judge won’t intervene to let funeral home dissolve bodies
