Ashes to ashes, dust to dust - you might think what happens to our bodies when we’ve shuffled off the mortal coil might be an environmentally neutral, an entirely natural process. Not according to residents of towns and cities across America, who claim that cremation is releasing dangerous chemicals into the atmosphere.
Citizens are becoming concerned about the possible side-effects of living near crematoria due to the chemicals released when bodies are burned, especially the problem of mercury from incinerated dental fillings.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that each crematorium emits 320 pounds of mercury each year, though some activists claim this is a conservative figure.
Community leader Johnny White, who represents the people of Richmond, California, a largely poor black area of San Francisco, said “You’re burning bodies, and the emissions are going up into the air. They can put it somewhere else, away from where people live.”
“We don’t want to be guinea pigs,” added one Henry Clark, chief of Richmond’s West County Toxic Coalition. “These things are not properly regulated. There’s a scarcity of information on what chemicals they use in the process, and what is actually released.”
However, some scientists, along with the funeral industry, have said the public is over-reacting to the issue. An EPA scientist said, “I don’t think it’s a risk to people who live in the vicinity of crematoriums,” while the Cremation Association of North America claimed “From an environmental standpoint, crematories are a non-issue.”
