A Canadian funeral company is offering customers a new, “greener” funeral process - by pouring human remains down the sewage drain.

The company uses alkaline solutions to dissolve the corpse into a coffee-coloured liquid and then sends the remains into the sewage system.

"It brings your body back to its natural state," Dale Hilton, the owner of Aquagreen Dispositions, said.

"It's the same way as being buried in the ground, but instead of taking 15, 20 years to disintegrate, it does it in a quicker process. And it's all environmentally friendly."

What is left of the corpse after the flame-free cremation process is the skeleton, which is then dried up and pressed into powder. The powder, which weighs between three and five kilograms, is given to the loved one’s family to be scattered.

Ted Joynt, the superintendent of facilities for Smiths Falls and the municipal employee responsible for water treatment, inspected the business. He acknowledged that processing a large number of bodies could put a strain on the water treatment plant.

"It could be a problem. We haven't experienced that yet. I don't know how many bodies they'd have to do in a day for that to be a problem," he said.

"The liquid mixes with all the other wastewater from the Galipeau Centre, so it tends to dilute it down quite a bit before it gets into our pipes."

According to Mr Hilton, the vessel where the body is dissolved uses an amount of electricity equivalent to that used by a refrigerator.

Pieces of surgical hardware in the body, such as artificial hip joints, screws and heart stents, remain unharmed during the ‘cremation’ process. According to Mr Hilton, such specialised hardware is recycled and donated to hospitals in developing countries.

"You're entering yourself back to your natural state as you come into this world. You come in by water, and you leave by water," said Hilton. "It's green, all the way around."