• Funeral directors ( or family members ) only may prepare a body for cremation .
• No employee of a cemetery , not even a crematory operator , is allowed to handle a body .
• Crematories according to Massachusetts General Law Chapter 114 are only allowed inside the bounds of a cemetery .
• Cemeteries may not have funeral homes and vice versa in the state of Massachusetts .
All of this is to say , the two greener alternatives may be sooner approved for funeral homes than cemeteries because it appears both methods require handling the body . Further investigation is required .
There are alternatives that are quickly becoming available in other states . The first , alkaline hydrolysis , commonly called “ water cremation ”, is legal in twenty states including Maine , Vermont and Connecticut . It is commonly used in all states for pet cremation . The result is something similar to that of cremated remains .
Natural organic reduction ( NOR ), the second alternative , evolved from the ‘ Urban Death Project ’ which recognized that urban cemeteries are running out of casket burial space . The solution is based on the way farmers dispose of dead livestock . One puts them into the compost pile . Seemingly undignified to city folks , but eminently sustainable . Essentially , NOR is the composting of a human body . After a few years of venture capital funding and scientific study , the state of Washington legalized NOR in 2019 . Bills in state legislatures in New York and Colorado may soon legalize NOR .
Figure 3 – Alkaline Hydrolysis Accepted and Under consideration . Accessed March 8 , 2021 : https :// cdn . ymaws . com / www . cremationassociation . org / resource / resmgr / consumers / alkaline _ hy drolysis _ status . png
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