An Environmentally Friendly Path to Reincarnation

Hindus believe that cremation helps release a body's soul so that it can live again. This might seem a matter of purely spiritual concern -- but with Hindus accounting for more than 85 percent of India's billion-strong population, all those cremations have a serious environmental impact.

An estimated 50 million trees are burned each year to send departed souls on their way, leaving behind half a million tons of ash and eight million tons of carbon dioxide. But Vinod Agarwal, an Indian engineer, has developed a funeral pyre that could reduce the need for wood and cut CO2 emissions by 60 percent.

Agarwal first got the idea for what he calls the Mokshda Green
Cremation System after an unpleasant experience in 1992 at Haridwar on the banks of the river Ganges.

While attending a funeral in the northern Indian city, considered holy by Hindus, Agarwal said he saw a poor family struggling to carry out a cremation with sparse damp wood. The fire went out repeatedly and the partially burned corpse was finally flung into the Ganges.

"This is the river whose water we bring home for praying," said
Agarwal, referring to the belief that the river confers salvation on those who bathe in it.

A typical pyre consumes more than 800 pounds of wood and costs around
$30, so cremations also go awry when poor families are unable to buy enough wood. But Agarwal says just 44 pounds should do the trick. The Mokshada system uses a raised brazier that allows circulating air to fan the flames and captures particulate emissions in a chimney filter.

Agarwal's company has installed 41 of its pyres, which sport marble floors and statue of Shiva. Several cities, including Mumbai -- also known as Bombay -- have adopted the design.

New 'Green' Pyre Promoted in India [Agence France-Presse]

Image: Steve Evans*