ECO-FRIENDLY “freeze-dry” burials are to be allowed in Scotland in an effort to free up space in overcrowded cemeteries.

Ministers are to approve the new method of disposal, which involves bodies being frozen and then shattered into dust. The “promession” technique means a person's remains can be absorbed into the soil within months instead of decades, freeing up burial plots in graveyards that are running out of space for the 55,000 Scots who die every year.

The method is being marketed as an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional burials and cremations. Burials can lead to underground watercourses becoming polluted, while cremations give rise to harmful mercury emissions from tooth fillings.

New legislation to allow promession to be used in Scotland has been recommended by the government's burial and cremation review group, which was set up to examine the law relating to the disposal of human bodies.

“Although it was acknowledged that these technologies are still in their infancy, the group considered that they, like the traditional methods of disposal, should be regulated,” the group's report concluded.

Under promession, the body is slowly frozen to -18C then submerged in liquid nitrogen at -196C before being vibrated until it shatters. The water is then evaporated, to allow fillings, hip joints, pacemakers and other metals to be removed, leaving a pile of powder roughly a third of the weight of the deceased.

The remains are then buried in a small biodegradable starch coffin in a shallow grave, where there is more oxygen, animal and bacterial activity that turn the contents into compost in six to 12 months.

After testing the process on dead pigs, the Swedish health board approved it last year. The town of Jonkoping is now building the world's first “promatorium” and parish councils in the country have been inundated with inquiries.

Crematoriums in Cheshire, Northamptonshire and Leeds are among those interested in becoming the first in the UK to use the method, which costs about the same as a cremation.

Susanne Wiigh-Mäsak, the Swedish biologist who devised promession, said Scotland had the chance to lead the way by legislating for the technique.

European environmental laws mean all UK crematoriums must cut their emissions of mercury by 2012, and promession was the best solution, she said.

“Many people find this a very appealing idea. It takes the best from burial and the best from cremation,” she said.

“Death doesn't seem so final, but part of supporting new life. It's like a gift back to nature. Your body grows through life thanks to plants, and promession gives a chance to say thank you and give something back.”

The world's first promession ceremony is expected in Sweden within a year, after seven years of legal wrangling with the local and national authorities.

In the UK, changes in funeral practice have always met with public and official resistance, and it was only after years of campaigning that the first municipal crematorium opened in the UK in 1901. Now 70% of funerals involve cremation.

Demand for environmentally friendly burials has soared in recent years. The UK already has 220 sites offering natural burials in woodlands and parkland using biodegradable coffins and shallow graves, 12 of them in Scotland.

Many cemeteries in Scotland have run out of burial plots. Families in Cardenden recently urged Fife council to find new land for graves after their local cemetery ran out of room.

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