In Singapore, the trend of ‘aquamation’, cremation with water, to say goodbye to pets is growing

Santhiya cremated a deceased pet years ago and told himself he would not repeat the experience. The Singaporean is now saying goodbye to her toy poodle in a way that is more in line with her beliefs: cWith the “aquamation”, which replaces fire with water, making you “feeling more relaxed, and it is good for the environment”.

“I had a pet in the past that I cremated and I didn’t like it, the process was very fast, I didn’t have time to absorb it. In addition, I generally try to respect the environment in my daily life,” 31-year-old Santhiya told EFE.

The woman, of Indian ethnicity (one of the three largest in Singapore, after Malay and Chinese), has come with her mother, Kalavathi, and her grandmother, Leichumy, to say goodbye to “Carpet”, a toy poodle who died at nearly 17 years old, at “The Green Mortician”, the first pet water cremation service in the Asian city-state.

While her former pet’s cremation seemed fleeting and impersonal, “Carpet’s” farewell is the complete opposite: It’s a long and solemn farewell, beginning with the dog lying on her mattress in a flower-decorated loft in a warm funeral home. viewing room, surrounded by Santhiya and her relatives.

The Singaporeans administer milk into the muzzle of the deceased poodle – “in Indian culture we believe this is how the life cycle ends, starting with the same food we were given when we came into the world,” says Santhiya – and spend a few hours with her before aquamation begins.

Technically called alkaline hydrolysis, the method recreates in an accelerated manner the decomposition of a body using potassium hydroxide and water at a high temperature (about 150 degrees), introduced with the animal in a metal chamber, so that the only thing left at the end of the process, which can take anywhere from 20 to 24 hours, are the bones.

“A lot of people don’t like the idea of ​​fire, it’s depressing. We’ve already had about 40 clients and we’ve also organized a small funeral for them,” Yang Loo, who founded “The Green Mortician,” the only establishment of its kind on the prosperous island, told EFE last March.

Loo then deals with the process of pulverizing the bones, which takes another day or two, so that they are turned into ash, similar to that of burning with fire, which is delivered to the family.

28 year old former DJ, Loo had become an entrepreneur of environmental projects when a friend told him about the acuamaciónapplied to pets for about three decades in the US, as well as other countries, although its use has gradually spread, including to humans.

One of the most relevant and recent examples was last year’s water cremation of South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a method used by the 1984 Nobel laureate. because of his opposition to apartheid, he had chosen to record his commitment to the environment.

And it is that, by requiring no combustion, experts assure that aquamation reduces greenhouse gas emissions by about 35 percent, as well as requiring about 90 percent less energy than inflammatory cremation, which takes between 2 and 4 hours.

Loo admits to being “surprised” by the good reception of his company in Singapore, an island of about 5.5 million people with hardly any undeveloped space, making cremations almost an obligation as there are no square meters to lay out the cemeteries. expand.

different pets

“People are very receptive,” says the young man, who assures that he asks more or less what a traditional pet cremation would cost, between about $400 and $800, depending on the size of the animal, having cremated everything from birds and hamsters to dogs and cats.

The founder of “The Green Mortician,” a spa-inspired space decorated with Scandinavian-style furnishings and enlivened with Zen music through background music, confirms that part of his motivation stemmed from his rejection of traditional funerals: “they are too sad ”.

His next goal is to convince the Singaporean authorities to be able to reuse the water used in the process. (approximately 800 litres, several animals can be cremated at the same time in different compartments), as he now has to store and process it, which significantly increases operating costs.

The high cost of the machinery required for the process, which is priced at around $150,000, in addition to the additional cost of processing the water, are currently the main obstacles to the company’s expansion, although its vision of the future is clear.

“The next step is humans. There is no space in Singapore and cremations are not sustainable,’ he says.