California is all about fighting climate change these days, and our lawmakers want you to keep the fight going even after you're dead.
Assemblyman Todd Rex Gloria (D-San Diego) has introduced Assembly Bill 967, known as “Human remains disposal: alkaline hydrolysis: licensure and regulation."
If it passes, your family can liquefy your corpse by the year 2020. So if you're looking to kick the bucket soon, but you love the environment, just hang in there a little longer.
This is the third time California has tried to pass this kind of legislation. According to a story by KQED, dissolving the body is a great way to protect the planet.
They talked to Caitlin Doughty, a mortician in Los Angeles:
“Cremation is really what people hold up as the environmentally friendly option. It’s better than the whole rigmarole of formaldehyde and chemicals and big caskets that go into the more traditional funeral industry, but it still releases mercury into the air, and it uses a whole ton of natural gas.”
The carbon footprint of the liquefying process is 1/4 of traditional cremation, and just 1/6 of a burial because it doesn't require materials for headstones, caskets, and chemicals for embalming.
Dissolving the body also allows for any metals to be recovered and recycled, and prevents toxins, like mercury from tooth fillings, from going into the atmosphere.
Save the planet, get liquefied when you croak!