Whitsunday Funerals Mackay applies to build The Gentle Way ‘cremator’

After an application to build a traditional crematorium was rejected, a Queensland undertaker has lodged a new zero emissions plan to “dissolve” the departed. Warning: Distressing content

Whitsunday Funerals and Crematorium owner Jeff Boyle. Picture: Matthew Newton

A Mackay undertaker is seeking approval to install a new environmentally-friendly machine that will dissolve dead bodies using alkaline hydrolysis.

Whitsunday Funerals owner Jeff Boyle has submitted an application to introduce “The Gentle Way” technology at his funeral home on Shakespeare St, opposite a McDonald’s restaurant.

“This new technology does not result in any waste or emissions and could operate in the backroom of any funeral parlour without anyone being the wiser as the whole process is self-contained within its system and (there is) no disposal into the sewer system,” a report lodged to Mackay Regional Council states.

“The issue with the new system being included in the ‘crematorium’ definition is that a lot of councils will not even consider allowing such a use to be able to operate within existing funeral parlours due to the negative emissions and stigma attached to a crematorium.”

Whitsunday Funerals has developed The Gentle Way, which is a zero-pollution service. The body is put into a water soluble body bag, placed in a basket and into a pressurised water-filled chamber with lye, a caustic liquid commonly used to make soap. Picture: Whitsunday Funerals

In support of his application, Mr Boyle commissioned an odour assessment that sampled air from his Bowen-based business, where a Gentle Way system is already installed.

The samples came in well under the threshold.

Whitsunday Funerals and Crematorium owner Jeff Boyle at his morgue.

Mr Boyle’s application for the alkaline hydrolysis crematorium comes four years after he alleged the council was “corrupt” for rejecting his request to build a traditional crematorium at his Shakespeare St premise.

The new application to council states The Gentle Way system turns a body into bone fragments and liquid, after which the fragments are “placed into a cremulator and turned into a white powder-like product”.

The liquid, which includes organic compounds such as salt, sugars, amino acids and peptides, are transferred into a wastewater treatment, where it is turned into PH-neutral water and “high-grade” fertiliser.

“The human bodies are 65 per cent water, and by recycling the water, we have more than we require,” documents state.

Read more about The Gentle Way system here.