How Whitsunday Funerals is using DNA from corpses to plant new memories

A funeral industry pioneer is now launching a new environmentally-friendly service that will use DNA from corpses to create rich plant memories. And families are already lining up.

Whitsunday Funerals and Crematorium owner Jeff Boyle at his Proserpine morgue.

A former aircon technician turned undertaker is launching a zero-pollution service that uses DNA from corpses to create rich plant memories.

And customers are already lining up.

Whitsunday Funerals owner Jeff Boyle has spent three years fine-tuning the environmentally-friendly service as an alternative to burials or cremations.

The North Queenslander said families could still have a traditional funeral service with the body presented in a “beautiful, dressed” Tasmanian Blackwood casket before The Gentle Way began.

He said the body was 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.

“There’s no smoke, there’s no pollution, there’s no greenhouses gases, there’s nothing,” Mr Boyle said.

Whitsunday Funerals has developed The Gentle Way which is a zero-pollution service using DNA from corpses to create rich plant memories. Picture: Whitsunday Funerals

Warming the water to 90C over 10 to 12 hours, the alkaline hydrolysis process breaks the body down into chemical components leaving only “white and soft” bones behind.

“It’s like a body being in the shower,” Mr Boyle said.

“We use the rainwater off the top of the roof.

“You can keep cleaning the water over and over again, we bring it back to pH neutral and at the end of each process, we do a back flush.

“This is what catches the DNA of a person.”

Whitsunday Funerals and Crematorium owners Jeff and Judy Boyle. Picture: Matthew Newton

Mr Boyle said the 200ml of DNA was then given back to the family in a potted rose or magnolia plant or alternatively, customers could choose their own plant.

A desert rose was being given to a customer today.

He said they already had 40 to 50 customers wanting to use the service as an attractive and cheaper alternative to burials.

Families are also given their loved one’s ashes.

The former air conditioner technician said he fell into the funeral business “by mistake” more than three decades ago after his friend asked him to help transport his deceased father from Brisbane to Melbourne.

“He said, ‘can I use your (Volkswagen) van?’,” Mr Boyle said.

“I said, ‘how are we going to keep your dad cold?’”

And so Mr Boyle retrofitted the van with a vent and the pair wrapped the body in a dry ice blanket.

“When we got to Melbourne, he was in a perfect condition and the funeral director down there said to me, ‘Why don’t you do this for a living?’

“He said, ‘No one’s doing this, this is fantastic, instead of coming back decomposed like they usually do, he’s come back perfect’.”

Whitsunday Funerals and Crematorium owners Jeff and Judy Boyle. Picture: Contributed

Mr Boyle said the long drive home to Warwick made him ponder the opportunity but before long, his plans for a twice-a-month side hustle transformed into Spirit of Australia.

The corpse delivery company was “big business”, he said, adding back then it was common for bodies to be transported behind the luggage underneath Greyhound buses.

“(Our) cars ran 24 hours a day, seven days a week, it never stopped,” Mr Boyle said.

“We ended up setting up offices in every state of Australia except for Western Australia.

“But I overdid it, I had a heart attack, my own stupid fault.

“I was working 18 hour days, 365 days a year, it was just too much.”

And so when the former owner of Funeral Services Whitsunday made him a proposition to take over, he accepted.

Mr Boyle and his wife Judy changed the name to Whitsunday Funerals and Crematorium and went on to open two more businesses in Mackay and Bowen.

For more information, head to Whitsunday Funerals’ website.

Originally published as How Whitsunday Funerals is using DNA from corpses to plant new memories