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Dead bodies to be burned to heat UK swimming pool

MSNBC,

24 Febraury, 2012

LONDON -- Dead bodies will be burned to heat a swimming pool in the U.K. -- and the British government is considering adopting the idea across the country.

Senior lawmaker Sir George Young, the leader of the House of Commons, told The Telegraph newspaper that he would "die a happier man" if he could arrange for his cremation to provide heat for swimmers.

Redditch Borough Council is set to become the first local government body in England to use heat from a crematorium to warm a pool this spring, the newspaper reported.

"The government is aware of this particular scheme," Young said. "The Department for Energy and Climate Change will shortly be publishing its heat strategy and this will explore the potential for better recovery and reuse of wasted heat in schemes such as this one."

'Sick and an insult'

The Telegraph said the incinerators used to burn bodies reach temperatures of 1,472 degrees Fahrenheit and cited estimates that using the waste heat from the Redditch crematorium could save more than $22,000 per year.

Carole Gandy, the leader of Redditch Borough Council, was quoted as saying she was rather the energy was used than “just see it going out of the chimney and heating the sky.”

"It will make absolutely no difference to the people who are using the crematorium for services,” she told The Telegraph. "I do recognise some people might not like it, but if they don't they don't have to use our crematorium. I wouldn't want them to do that but they have to make that choice.”

Unison, a labor union representing public workers, has described the idea as "sick and an insult to local residents,” The Telegraph reported.

It added that Durham Crematorium, in northern England, was thinking about fitting turbines to its burners in order to create electricity that could potentially power 1,500 televisions