Jevon Truesdale, Founder at Qico in California has been in touch to let us know Fire to Water™ their new cremation system has taken a leap forward thanks to an award of $1.6 million in tax credits – a government Business & Economic Development support. The system generates ashes for scattering. It’s cleaner, safer and more energy efficient than cremation, and, Qico would argue, the ecologically beneficial way to go.

Qico’s vision is to introduce a new cremation system that uses water rather than fire to dispose of a body after death. This is predicted to be greener, so let’s welcome that. Cremation at the moment isn’t great for air emissions. See our blog on green funerals and understand some of the current options around cremation and burial.

Qico’s targetting home territory first, aiming to eliminate the incineration of 2.5 billion BTUs of natural gas and 5 tons of mercury occurring in the United States each year. Japan is their next target – same scale of issue. All countries using cremation are generating carcinogenic emissions.

Jevon explained “Increased interest in cremation has recently been accompanied by a heightened awareness of the long-term environmental impact from crematoria emissions, which is only further compounded by the world’s aging population as the inevitable Age Wave is just beginning to crest. These factors have led to the formation of Qico and to the development of our Fire to Water system of sustainable cremation technology.”

Qico has their fully-automated head on and aims to see its production facility in San Diego to be fully automated, again reducing energy consumption, eliminating waste materials, and making operations more efficient.

They promise, futuristically, that their “cloud based operations will be utilized for providing top shelf service to funeral practitioners operating Systems around the world with an unparalleled ease of operations, consistent supply delivery, and predictive maintenance scheduling to support each installation.”

Great. (Though I can’t help but hear the supermarket self-serve checkout voice “assistance needed” in my head.)

It’s a competitive scenario, getting ideas to market, so it’s great news for Qico to get this Tax Credit win. They will use the credits to progress plans for its operation in San Diego, which promises 80 new jobs over the next 5 years as well as the deliver of this new cremation system.

See other plans that are around for how we deal with remains:

• Capsula Mundi – Italian team’s idea to become a tree when you die – currently crowdfunding
• Composting bodies
• Natural burial – gets our vote.

Do you have strong views about burial or cremation or natural burial? If you have a view about how you’d like to go, capture it in your Wishes.