Texas funeral homes are dumping bodily fluids down the drain
During the warm summer months, in the capital city of Austin, Texas, temperatures can climb to around 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and Austinites regularly cool off with a dip or kayak ride along the Colorado River. They might be paddling through human remains.
Austin-area funeral homes, as well as those throughout the state, are dumping bodily fluids that remain after the embalming process down the drain, where they may compromise the waste treatment system that sends treated water into the Colorado, a new investigation from the Austin American-Statesman has found.
Embalming, though often not medically or legally necessary, is the process by which human remains are chemically preserved to appear more life-like and forestall decomposition, a common practice for those seeking a final viewing before burial.
There are roughly three dozen funeral homes across the city, and many flush the embalming chemicals, as well as blood and other human fluids, down the drain once the process is done.
Austin Water, the city’s water regulator, said it wasn’t aware this was common practice, and that it would need these businesses to submit a permit to allow this kind of dumping, in order to safeguard the waste water treatment system.
"Austin Water Special Services has not received a permit application from any funeral homes," Austin Water told the paper in a statement. "This ordinance is in place to protect against pollutants that could damage or obstruct the wastewater collection system or interfere with the wastewater treatment process."
(It later clarified and said that "wastewater treatment plants can process and treat funeral home medical waste to high standards as outlined by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.)
Industry representatives defended the practice, noting that the embalming process already highly dilutes any blood coming out of the body, and that wastewater plants deal with far dirtier materials coming down people’s drains from sinks and toilets.
"When I first learned how to embalm and I went to school and I started teaching, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is going down the drain.’ But the things at people’s residences that go down the drain is far worse, much more toxic," Glenn Bowe, executive director of the Texas Funeral Service Commission, told the paper.
In Texas, hospitals have a stricter form of water permit than general industrial businesses like funeral homes, and often dispose of human remains with special biowaste processes.
Due to the use of chemicals like formaldehyde, as well as the extra cost, alternatives to embalming have emerged such as refrigeration, quick burials, direct cremation, as well as environmentally minded practices such as biodegradable caskets and natural decomposition.
