Even as cremation gains popular acceptance as a solution to the problem of cemetery overcrowding and the harsh environmental impacts inherent in traditional burial, some say cremation doesn’t go far enough to mitigate environmental concerns.

Among the latter is an Australian engineering company that hopes to import and employ a technology known as resomation. The process uses chemicals at high temperatures to dissolve human bodies, yielding liquid remains that could be used as fertilizer, as well as a dry bone residue that could be kept in a cremation urn.

Handmade Biodegradable Box Cremation Urn

Resomation uses less energy than cremation while eliminating the need to dedicate more and more land space to burials. In resomation, bodies are dissolved in lye in stainless steel cylinders comparable to pressure cookers. Although the technology is not yet in widespread use, two U.S. universities are using resomation to dispose of cadavers donated for medical research.

In 2008, the New South Wales Department of Lands released a discussion paper on sustainable disposal of corpses, detailing the plight of Sydney’s eight Crown land cemeteries, all of which are expected to be full by 2035.

Cremation is cited in the paper as one way to ease the pressure on cemeteries; however, concerns have been raised that the release of pollutants, such as mercury from dental fillings, makes cremation a less sustainable option than many think. Proponents of resomation say the technology’s big advantage is that it relies less on fossil fuels than either burial or cremation.