Green option, red tape
Headingley-based Tillwell waiting on government approval to become Manitoba’s first alkaline hydrolysis facility for human remains
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/06/2024 (478 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Dogs’, cats’ and birds’ remains are welcome at a new business offering alkaline hydrolysis, a water-based alternative to flame cremation.
Not welcome — yet — are human remains, despite the fledgling Manitoba company’s best efforts.
“It’s been a long road,” said Dwayne Till, founder of Tillwell.

JOHN WOODS / FREE PRESS
Dwayne Till, founder of Tillwell, a company that offers ‘aquamation’ or flameless cremation, displays the veterinarian alkaline hydrolysis system in his Headingley business.
The Headingley-based business finished paperwork this month and can aquamate the remains of people’s pets. The process involves heated water and alkali breaking down the body instead of flames.
It’s a newer service in Manitoba. The Manitoba Funeral Service Association spent at least seven years lobbying for government to recognize the zero-emission practice, which is offered in Ontario, Saskatchewan, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Northwest Territories.
In November, Manitoba green-lit alkaline hydrolysis as an after-death care service, a provincial spokesperson confirmed.
“The province reviews the legislation it administers and is committed to ensuring a fair and balanced marketplace,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.
Till, however, is unsure when his business will be able to start accepting human remains. He’s waiting on government approval.
If received, Tillwell will be the province’s first alkaline hydrolysis facility for humans.
For now, Till, 40, is continuing his full-time job in social services and works one shift per week at a restaurant to support his start-up.
“Time is money in my world,” he said. “I’m paying rent — that’s money. Every month that goes by, I’m paying interest on loans — that’s money.
“I’m running out of runway, in terms of keeping this thing alive.”
He’s been waiting for the Consumer Protection Office, which governs the provincial funeral sector, to approve him for more than a year.
In April 2023, Manitoba’s environmental approvals branch acknowledged Tillwell could aquamate pets. The branch also recommended to the Labour, Consumer Protection and Government Services division that Tillwell be accepted to process human remains. The Free Press reviewed both letters.
Since then, Till has contacted the Consumer Protection Office, the offices of cabinet ministers Lisa Naylor and Tracy Schmidt, and has filed a freedom of information request attempting to get a solid timeline for approval and an explanation for the delay.
“I don’t want to start a fight with the government,” Till stressed. “I really want to get business going, is what I want.”
Neither the Consumer Protection Office nor consumer protection minister Naylor provided the Free Press with information about Tillwell’s ongoing case. Both said they can’t comment on specific licence applications and businesses.
In the meantime, Tillwell is accepting pet remains. Its the second company in the province to do so. (Peaceful Pasture Pet Cremation in Lac du Bonnet began its service nearly four years ago.)
“I’ve put a lot of thought into it,” Till said of his 3,000-square-foot facility. “I put a lot of effort into making this space relaxing and inviting.”
He plans to invite veterinary office representatives to Tillwell, at 5 Fast Lane, to build a client base.
The Headingley site is intentional: it follows crematorium rules, meaning it can’t be within 200 yards of residential dwellings.
Alkaline hydrolysis is regulated under the Cemeteries Act. It should have legislation separate from cremation, given major differences between the two processes, the Manitoba Funeral Service Association argues.
“(Alkaline hydrolysis has) got all the environmental buzz words,” said association president Kevin Sweryd. “It’s carbon neutral, it’s environmentally friendly, there are zero emissions.”
Sweryd, who owns Bardal Funeral Home, has been pushing for alkaline hydrolysis approval for at least 12 years. He’s previously expressed a desire to run his own alkaline hydrolysis equipment, but his business is located in Winnipeg and doesn’t meet the distance-from-homes requirement.
Alkaline hydrolysis is generally more cost effective, Sweryd continued. It’s been gaining traction over the past two decades in the United States and Canada. Notably, South African anti-apartheid leader and theologian Desmond Tutu had requested alkaline hydrolysis before his 2021 death.
Manitoba legislation isn’t keeping pace with upgrades in technology, Sweryd stated. Provincial funeral acts are “dreadfully out of date and desperately in need of update.”
“It takes so long to get any kind of legislative review,” Sweryd expressed. “We end up getting a change in government, and then it kind of falls to the back of the line again.”
Legislative amendments occurred in 2022, when the Funeral Board of Manitoba was dissolved, a provincial spokesperson said.
The province is looking into potential legislation changes, but not involving alkaline hydrolysis, within the next year, according to Naylor.
“It pertains more to … cemeteries themselves,” she said, adding any altered legislation will be “information for the future.”
Meantime, the Manitoba Métis Federation’s senior economic adviser believes Tillwell provides “benefits in the funeral sector.”
The MMF’s financing branch, the Louis Riel Capital Corp., approved Tillwell for a grant and loan to assist its start-up. Tillwell received well over $100,000, Till relayed.
The company’s “green burial” option, its business plan, novelty and role in diversifying the funeral sector factored into the MMF’s approval process, said Lorne Pelletier, senior economic adviser.
He underlined Tillwell’s B Corp certification, which it received in September. B Corp certification shows businesses meet high social and environmental performance, public transparency and legal accountability standards.
Till started his company, in part, because of the environmental impact. His parents had been entrepreneurs; he’d felt drawn to opening an alkaline hydrolysis facility after reading about the practice in a National Geographic article.
He saw the Louis Riel Capital Corp. programs as a way to “start something significant (and) substantial,” Till said.
Till hired an independent engineering firm to conduct an environmental impact study on Tillwell, and he bought his equipment through Bio-Response Solutions, an Indiana-based company viewed as an industry leader.
Bio-Response has popularized alkaline hydrolysis. It’s branded its process “aquamation.”
During aquamation, a heated solution of 95 per cent water and five per cent alkali gently circulates around the body, breaking down organic materials.
According to Bio-Response’s website, the remaining inorganic materials (calcium phosphate of the bones) resemble skeletal remains and are then processed into powder resembling the ashes of a flame cremation.
Pets will be batched together in the process, though separated in their own modules, Till explained. Customers not wanting their animal’s remains pay $125; at $225 plus tax, people receive remains in a box and clay impressions. Tillwell will fill urns for free.
gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com

Gabrielle Piché reports on business for the Free Press. She interned at the Free Press and worked for its sister outlet, Canstar Community News, before entering the business beat in 2021. Read more about Gabrielle.
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