Ashes To Splashes
Oh dear. It’s ‘Is It Just Me?’ time again.
Redditch council has just approved a proposal to use the local crematorium as a source of heat for the swimming pool at its leisure centre. As far as I’m concerned, this is an utterly brilliant idea. The gas escaping from cremations currently has to be cooled from 800 degrees to 160 degrees as part of a process to remove mercury vapour. The surplus heat is lost into the atmosphere. That’s a whole lot of warm doing nobody any good, and presumably doing the planet some bad. (And possibly, in my fevered imagination at least, roasting any pigeons unfortunate enough to be flying past at the time, but that’s by the by unless you’re a pigeon. I’m going to assume that you’re not, but if you are: well done for getting this far. The corn’s behind the right hand flap.)
Anyway, you won’t be at all surprised to learn that the good old Daily Mail is up in arms about the whole thing. It naturally finds the proposal ‘sick’ and quotes a member of the public as saying, “it’s disgusting, using burning bodies to heat a pool” – as though the plan involved dousing Aunty Jean in petrol before casting her into the shallow end to keep the aqua aerobics class warm.
I also heard a radio interview with a local clergyman who expressed concern that the process would detract from the ‘spiritual aspect’ of cremation. Both he and the Mail seem to be overlooking the fact that, if you want ‘sick’, then chucking the body of your loved one into an industrial incinerator is quite a good start. However much we might want to believe differently, there are no harp-wielding angels on fluffy clouds behind those curtains, and Saint Peter isn’t the one operating the conveyor belt.
So I’d just like to say: well done, Redditch. And I hope it’s not just me.
Something Blonde 
Great blog post. This story was picked up by many of the papers here in Toronto, Canada. It would appear that Redditch is proposing a very common sensical means of heating public pools. Unfortunately the “ick” factor will trump common sense. Would like to refer my readers to this blog if
you are agreeable?
Thanks – and yes, of course you can 🙂
[…] is an interesting bit of news from blogger Something Blonde. She comments on a news story out of Redditch, England, where it has been proposed to use the […]
I have it on good authority that the editor of the Daily Mail kills every worm he sees because they have the appalling taste to eat – yes, eat, I tell you – dead people after they’ve been buried.
I’m not sure whether this is something you couldn’t make up, something that is bound to distress Princes William and Harry, or just political correctness gone mad.
That’s an appalling thought, Tim, and just imagine… all that rotting flesh and wood might be HELPING TO FERTILISE THE SOIL, too. Someone should definitely do something. 😉