[HN Gopher] Oregon Has Legalized Human Composting
___________________________________________________________________
Oregon Has Legalized Human Composting
Author : elsewhen
Score : 198 points
Date : 2021-06-18 12:36 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vice.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vice.com)
| senectus1 wrote:
| I'd be just as happy to know i was being disposed of via a magma
| flow or something. I really don't care whats done with my body
| after i'm done with it... just as long as its disposal isn't
| going to do further damage to the world or its inhabitants...
| warlog wrote:
| Make sure they take your car keys out of your pocket before
| dumping you... ...because, man, they're gone.
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| This makes so much sense, I prefer that my body can be used to
| grow plants/trees and whatever vegetals rather than getting
| putrefied in a coffin, and using land space for no reason
| Trias11 wrote:
| Need a highway ad:
|
| "Please volunteer for human composting. Recycle yourself!"
| lph wrote:
| My mother passed away a few weeks ago. It was her wish to go with
| Recompose. She was a master gardener, and to her, the idea of
| returning to the ecosystem was so much better than cremation or a
| cemetery. Through Recompose, her 'soil' will be donated to a
| reforesting project.
|
| As you can imagine, I've ruminated a lot on this lately. What's
| the purpose of a tombstone, or a plaque, or an urn full of ashes?
| To memorialize, or to honor someone who is gone? I don't need a
| monument for that. I spent a couple of hours yesterday
| propagating roses with my six-year old daughter, her grand-
| daughter. That's a better way to honor my mother, I think, and
| she would agree.
|
| As old-world tradition and religiosity fade, we can all find our
| own new ways to do these things. This is 'meaning-making', an
| interesting term I learned recently.
|
| Incidentally, her gardening buddies were intrigued to learn about
| human composting. I think Recompose is going to be big.
| flycaliguy wrote:
| I walk around a cemetery as part of my daily walk when I let my
| mind wander. Two big topics in my town are real estate and
| reconciliation with aboriginal people. Something about this
| giant plot of land covered in European names just seems so
| strange.
| mrkurt wrote:
| I'm sorry for your loss. I got a lot out of reading this
| comment and I appreciate that you shared it.
| arkush wrote:
| _" Recompose, the country's first human composting funeral home
| does it like this: a corpse is placed in a cylinder with organic
| materials, like wood chips, plants, and straw, then heated and
| turned repeatedly for several weeks with a hook until it's broken
| down into a nutrient-rich soil that can be delivered back to the
| family or used for planting."_
|
| Every time I read about using human corpses to produce soil, I
| recall this article:
|
| "Grass plants bind, retain, uptake and transport infectious
| prions"
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4449294/
|
| In the past I read about this or similar startup and they
| mentioned that they don't accept corpses of people diagnosed with
| prion diseases. IMHO, this is not enough. For example, a person
| with early CJD could die of other cause and never be diagnosed.
| Besides that, sporadic CJD isn't as rare as "1 per million"
| (still rare though).
|
| Here is an interesting video about prion diseases that, among
| other things, discusses epidemiology ("1 in 7000 US deaths"):
|
| "Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease and Other Prion Diseases - Brian
| Appleby, M.D."
|
| https://youtu.be/4vyuby6gibs?t=328
|
| Testing of corpses based on Protein Misfolding Cyclic
| Amplification (PMCA) might come in handy (if it's not too
| expensive). It is claimed to be very sensitive. Here is
| presentation by Dr. Rodrigo Morales (one of the authors of the
| article about prion uptake by plants that I linked above):
|
| "Texas CWD Symposium: Pre-symptomatic prion detection"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8ZX8sHAPUw
|
| P.S.: Hopefully, this eco-burial fad wouldn't catch on. How about
| deep sea burials?
| yosamino wrote:
| I hope when it's time for me, I can simply be flushed down the
| drain:
|
| > Alkaline hydrolysis is also used in the agricultural industry
| to sterilize animal carcasses that may pose a health hazard,
| because the process inactivates viruses, bacteria, and prions
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkaline_hydrolysis_(body_disp...
| drdavid wrote:
| I'd like a sky burial in Tibet, but that ain't gonna happen
| (at least not legally) unless things change.
| hh3k0 wrote:
| Paying your respects to the vultures? That is quite
| romantic.
|
| You could move to Tibet in order to have it eventually,
| though.
| matthewmorgan wrote:
| Aren't humans full of mercury and other nasty substances?
| devy wrote:
| Alkaline hydrolysis (water cremation) is another green way of
| disposing human and animal remains. It's a low cost option too.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkaline_hydrolysis_(body_disp...
| DesiLurker wrote:
| I just want to be cremated and my ashes scattered on moon. IMO it
| could be a huge business opportunity.
| enriquto wrote:
| lol what the fuck? if you have all that money do something
| useful, or at least indulge yourself while you are alive
| mod wrote:
| Paying to have yourself scattered on the moon _is_ indulging
| yourself while you 're alive.
| sloshnmosh wrote:
| It gives new meaning to:
|
| Grandma makes the best potatoes
| rglover wrote:
| Pass.
| ed_balls wrote:
| I wonder what is the risk of prions diseases.
|
| > A 68 kg (150 lbs) body which contains 65% water will require
| 100 MJ of thermal energy before any combustion will take place.
| 100 MJ is approximately equivalent to 3 m3 (105 ft3) of natural
| gas, or 3 liters of fuel oil (0.8 US gallons). Additional energy
| is necessary to make up for the heat capacity ("preheating") of
| the furnace, fuel burned for emissions control, and heat losses
| through the insulation and in the flue gases.
|
| > As a result, crematories are most often heated by burners
| fueled by natural gas. LPG (propane/butane) or fuel oil may be
| used where natural gas is not available. These burners can range
| in power from 150 to 400 kilowatts (0.51 to 1.4 million British
| thermal units per hour).
|
| >Crematories heated by electricity also exist in India, where
| electric heating elements bring about cremation without the
| direct application of flame to the body.
|
| >Coal, coke, and wood were used in the past, heating the chambers
| from below (like a cooking pot). This resulted in an indirect
| heat and prevented mixing of ash from the fuel with ash from the
| body. The term retort when applied to cremation furnaces
| originally referred to this design.
|
| More eco-friendly option would be to use pellet or electricity.
| refactor_master wrote:
| What does any of this have to do with prions though? If
| anything, the emissions are probably worse from a public health
| perspective.
| prepend wrote:
| Cremation will destroy prions. Composting will not. I guess
| the issue would be with prions from a composting brain
| getting into food supply.
|
| I'm not sure how real of a concern this is as deer with CWD
| die and decompose and I'm not aware of any transmission in
| this way.
| beambot wrote:
| I was of the impression that Prions are notoriously
| impervious to heat. They were said to withstand typical
| disinfecting protocols using an autoclave (250degF for
| 15-20min). Quick source:
|
| > To destroy a prion it must be denatured to the point that
| it can no longer cause normal proteins to misfold.
| Sustained heat for several hours at extremely high
| temperatures (900degF and above) will reliably destroy a
| prion.
|
| https://dwr.virginia.gov/wildlife/diseases/cwd/what-are-
| prio...
|
| I don't know the specific temperature profile of cremation,
| but I doubt it is sufficient.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| 900degF is barely temperature of a campfire
| rtkwe wrote:
| Cremation actually goes well above that. Cremation
| happens around 1400-1800F.
|
| https://www.cremationresource.org/cremation/how-is-a-
| body-cr...
| [deleted]
| prepend wrote:
| You're right that it withstands heat, but not cremation
| heat.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Autoclaves are meant to destroy living material while
| preserving what's being sanitized, while cremation
| intends to destroy everything and preserve nothing. For
| that reason, there's a difference in both temperature and
| exposure times.
| 01100011 wrote:
| Or a big friggin fresnel lens.
| nsm wrote:
| In Iain M. Banks' Culture series, customarily, a ship Mind
| displaces (teleports) your body to the center of the nearest
| star on death. That way your atoms contribute to the star and
| will eventually rise to the surface and spread through the
| universe. Also takes care of prion diseases.
| tcoff91 wrote:
| Sound's like Orholam's Glare from the Lightbringer series.
| ajdegol wrote:
| This would be a spectacular way to go! Well, post-go.
| Pxtl wrote:
| Set up one of those thermal solar power plants that are
| like a sea of mirrors and a tower with a boiler on top,
| then raise the body in a cage on a winch to the top.
|
| "Head towards the light".
| waldothedog wrote:
| a post-go go
| rapnie wrote:
| >> fuel oil (0.8 US gallons) > eco-friendly
|
| For people who drove cars.. mostly a (once-in-a-lifetime)
| symbolical gesture.
| munk-a wrote:
| It's more gallons than I'll probably use in my lifetime -
| I've driven maybe five miles in total when debating going for
| a drivers test and I'm now in my mid-thirties.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| Prions are scary, but the fact that prions have presumably
| existed for just as long as life has existed on Earth, there
| must be _something_ that keeps prions from replicating out of
| control and causing mass death and extinctions.
| jhgb wrote:
| Let's hope that that "something" wasn't smaller populations.
| csharptwdec19 wrote:
| It does make one wonder about oral traditions of 'cursed'
| lands...
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Something like 100 billion people have died in the last 50k
| years, and it doesn't really seem like prions from their
| corpses have been a problem.
| learc83 wrote:
| There were smaller populations of humans, but not smaller
| populations of mammals in general.
| maxerickson wrote:
| With our skill at making meat, I wonder how true that is.
| ed_balls wrote:
| It could be, because cultures that were using human bodies,
| instead of burning or burying them, went extinct.
|
| > Prehistory of endocannibalism controversy Whether or not
| endocannibalism was commonplace through much of human
| prehistory remains controversial.
|
| A team led by Michael Alpers, a lifelong investigator of
| kuru,[14] found genes that protect against similar prion
| diseases were widespread, suggesting that such
| endocannibalism could have once been common around the
| world.[15][16]
|
| A genetic study with a range of authors published by the
| University College London in 2009 declared evidence of a
| "powerful episode" of natural selection in recent humans.
| This evidence is found in the 127V polymorphism, a mutation
| which protects against the kuru disease. In simpler terms, it
| would appear the kuru disease has affected all humans to the
| extent we have a specialised immune response to it.[17]
| However, a study drawing from hundreds of resources in 2013
| claims further that 127V derives from an ancient and wide
| spread cannibalistic practice, not related to kuru
| specifically, but "kuru-like epidemics" which appeared around
| the time of the extinction of the neanderthals who co-existed
| with humans. This allows the suggestion that cannibalistic
| practises may have caused diseases which killed the
| neanderthals, but not the humans because of the 127V
| resistance gene.[18]
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endocannibalism
|
| >The earliest known reference to a requirement for a six-foot
| burial occurred in 1665 during the Great Plague of London.
| John Lawrence, the Lord Mayor of London,[13] ordered that the
| bodies of plague victims "...shall be at least six foot
| deep." The city officials apparently believed this would
| inhibit the spread of the disease, not realising that the
| true vector was fleas living on rats in the streets.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "there must be something that keeps prions from replicating
| out of control"
|
| Do you feel like we should roll the dice? If we roll a 6, it
| could be worse that the Plague and Covid combined
| 1-6 wrote:
| Since prions are found abundantly in the head, just bury or
| lock away the skulls and treat them like nuclear waste. Compost
| or cremate the rest of the body.
| SllX wrote:
| You could also put them in a jar and start a museum with
| them.
| Y_Y wrote:
| This is a solved problem! My startup is building modern,
| cutting-edge catacombs where we're redefining what it means
| to have a huge, underground maze full of decomposing human
| heads.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| Alcor will do this for $80,000/head, are your prices
| competitive?
| agumonkey wrote:
| > cutting-edge
|
| missed opportunity or subtlety mastery ?
| walterlb wrote:
| Great! Legacy underground mazes full of decomposing human
| heads are such a pain.
| dependsontheq wrote:
| I think your funding should primarily come from
| Kickstarter, I think that there will be very few lawsuits
| of people who want to deposit their skull.
| prepend wrote:
| Catacombs as a Service is really going to take off.
| boringg wrote:
| Dark humor
| rovr138 wrote:
| I have no idea if this is true or not... and that worries
| me.
|
| I think it's not, but, maybe?
| bserge wrote:
| It's just another Catacombs of Paris, which to be fair
| has stagnated, so maybe a new agile startup can do
| better.
| creddit wrote:
| It really is ripe for disruption. Will need significant
| upfront capital infusions, though, and really the
| ultimate play is on the cloud or possibly blockchain
| which has some bootstrapping issues. Watching this space
| closely.
| ssully wrote:
| I am in a similar market, but we are turning cadavers into
| headless server platforms.
| fileeditview wrote:
| Sounds like a civilized thing to do. Just hack off the head
| and store it in some permanent disposal site. Then a few
| centuries later our ancestors will have to move the nuclear
| waste because of some leakage and will dig up the skulls.
|
| Clearly a savage had lived there amongst the nuclear barrels.
| Its mind altered by the radiation, chopping off those poor
| worker heads.
|
| If it wasn't clear: /s
|
| And yes prions might be dangerous but what you propose seems
| out of proportion.
| rebuilder wrote:
| Now hold on, I think you're on to something. We still
| haven't solved how to communicate the dangers of nuclear
| waste to our descendants several millenia from now. What
| better warning than thousands and thousands of skulls piled
| around the hazmat?
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| There are already things like the Skull Chapel
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_Chapel that are
| basically tourist traps because of having a bunch of
| skulls.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Actually putting in into nuclear waste solves the problem
| forever
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Why can't people just opt to be buried without embalming or a
| casket? Sounds like a nice way to go buried whole and maybe with
| some sort of tree seed that grows over where you are laid.
|
| Not going to lie on a personal level, the composting process
| sounds terrible.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Human remains can be somewhat toxic (particularly to humans).
|
| Human remains are a breeding ground for disease that
| specializes in breaking down humans. Now imagine that diseased
| juice getting into the local water system.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "Human remains are a breeding ground for disease that
| specializes in breaking down humans"
|
| They are not diseases, but common microorganism - and they
| are specialized into breaking down any dead organic material.
|
| You don't want them in the drinking water, though. But you
| don't want any microorganism in the drinking water.
| kibwen wrote:
| It's a myth that human remains are toxic. A human body is
| only as toxic as the living human that it once was. Which is
| to say, avoid getting blood and feces on your mucous
| membranes and you're not at any elevated risk.
|
| With regard to drinking water, here's what the CDC advises
| with regard to whether people should be concerned with a
| natural abundance of un-preserved corpses in the wake of a
| natural disaster:
|
| _" Bacteria and viruses from human remains in flood water
| are a minor part of the overall contamination that can
| include uncontrolled sewerage, a variety of soil and water
| organisms, and household and industrial chemicals. There are
| no additional practices or precautions for flood water
| related to human remains, beyond what is normally required
| for safe food and drinking water, standard hygiene and first
| aid."_
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/disasters/handleremains.html
|
| In general their broader advice is that you don't need to
| worry about any sort of disease outbreak happening if there
| are un-preserved corpses lying around (a position with which
| the WHO concurs).
|
| We should be more concerned with formaldehyde leaching out of
| preserved corpses than from any chemical byproduct of human
| decomposition.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| That's usually how Muslims do it. Though we usually use very
| simple wooden caskets to ease transportation and handling . We
| usually also bury the corpse 24h or less after death, since we
| traditionally couldn't preserve it ( though refrigeration made
| that possible without embalming)
| chucka9 wrote:
| > Why can't people just opt to be buried without embalming or a
| casket?
|
| The article mentions the amount of land that this uses. I'd
| imagine that's a big part of it.
| lph wrote:
| You can, at least here in Washington state. It's called 'green
| burial'.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Enbalming isn't universal; AFAIK it's forbidden, or at least
| discouraged, in Judaism and Islam, say. Coffins also aren't
| universal (but can be made biodegradable, anyway)
| greenburial wrote:
| "Green Burials" [1] are gaining in popularity.
|
| Sadly I know this because a young person that committed suicide
| opted for such a burial. I imagine the older generations are
| more concerned with tradition and religion.
|
| [1] https://www.nhfuneral.org/green-burial-cemeteries-in-the-
| us-...
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Why can't people just opt to be buried
|
| Because this is a huge waste of land.
| BBC-vs-neolibs wrote:
| Cardboard caskets are half-way there.
| rjbwork wrote:
| Personally I'd opt for a Mongolian style sky burial. They just
| take you out onto a mountainside, cut you up a little bit, and
| the carrion birds and other animals come to eat you up. Seems
| like the quickest way to return your elements to the earth.
| rpastuszak wrote:
| This reminds me of the Towers of Silence found in historical
| Persia, and modern-day India:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Silence
|
| Zoroastrian rituals related to death are fascinating (not
| only because of their impact on abrahamic religions, but
| that's a different story)
| rjbwork wrote:
| Very cool. I didn't know about this kind of death ritual
| outside of the Mongolian steppes. Thanks for the link.
| croisillon wrote:
| how about "whale fall"
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_fall) burial, feeding
| the oceans
| cwkoss wrote:
| Sleep With The Fishes As A Service
| Y_Y wrote:
| That beautiful circle of life is why I'm so keen on eating
| Mongolian vulture meat.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't do this here.
| rjbwork wrote:
| Hey dang, I don't actually understand what the above
| poster did wrong or why they were downvoted so heavily or
| why you felt the need to personally reprimand them.
|
| Not saying you or anyone else is wrong for doing so, but
| I feel like something must be going over my head. Can you
| enlighten me?
| Y_Y wrote:
| If it helps, I'm not sure either. It wasn't a
| particularly clever joke, and it was a bit gross. I
| didn't expect to be told off though.
| dang wrote:
| I post that particular moderation line a lot in a very
| specific kind of context, which this felt like an example
| of to me - but I didn't mean it to be a big deal, nor to
| come down hard on you. I'm sorry if it felt that way!
| dang wrote:
| It wasn't a deep move, just a standard response to an
| unsubstantive comment, perhaps with a small multiplier
| for subject matter.
|
| If that still doesn't make sense I'm happy to call it a
| misfire.
| djaychela wrote:
| I think there is the option (at least in the UK [1]) to be
| buried in a coffin which is quickly biodegradable, thereby
| speeding up the recycling process.
|
| [1] - https://naturalendings.co.uk/green-coffins/
| rapnie wrote:
| There's this Dutch startup growing coffins with fungus.
|
| https://futurism.com/living-cocoon-coffin-fungus
| boringg wrote:
| What about getting set up on pyre in Varanasi? To be fair, not
| really a green option (CO2 emissions) but feels a bit more
| natural than being buried
| manquer wrote:
| CO2 is least of the problems with varansi. From disease
| vectors to river pollution there is ton of issues with it.
| xwdv wrote:
| If a plant such as a tree is grown from your remains don't you
| basically "become" the tree?
|
| I've always thought it would be great if one could become some
| kind of long lasting tree that could last generations and could
| be visited upon by ancestors, but I don't know how practical such
| graveyard forests would be.
| mark-wagner wrote:
| Just like the "fathertrees" from Card's book "Speaker for the
| Dead."
| rkagerer wrote:
| That's neat I've felt the same instinct.
| uggwar wrote:
| "It is every citizen's final duty to go into the tanks and become
| one with all the people." - Chairman Sheng-ji Yang
| gandalfian wrote:
| I always remember Cardinal Newman instructing for a load of
| compost to be dumped on top of his coffin to prevent there being
| anything to dig up and sanctify. They still tried a hundred years
| later but all they found was a brass plaque and earth...
| zamadatix wrote:
| Seems like an impressive timescale to remove all the bone too.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| An active compost pile can consume an animal carcass of any
| size, bones and all, in the 60-90 days. This is the way
| nature recycles resources and she has gotten very good at it
| over the eons.
| maliker wrote:
| Huh, he was also sainted by the church. Patron saint of
| composting?
| okareaman wrote:
| Hallucinogenic mushrooms are legal to grow in Oregon so I'd like
| have some grown on my composted body and parcel them out for a
| ceremony of my life
| dalbasal wrote:
| That's a lot of pressure on whoever's propogating them. Better
| to spread the compost somewhere they already grow (like Oregon)
| and collect seasonally.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _Better to spread the compost somewhere they already grow
| (like Oregon) and collect seasonally._
|
| Different species of psychedelic mushrooms have been found in
| almost all of the contiguous United States and Hawai'i. It
| used to be thought that the PNW and Southeast US were the
| only places they grew in the US, but new native species have
| been discovered in the last 20 years, and some of them are
| actually quite common, prolific and apparently potent.
| okareaman wrote:
| I'm sure Shamans will become a thing now that they are legal
| and offer a ceremony like this.
| bolangi wrote:
| According to Dr. Elaine Ingham, "the compost tea lady", a large
| compost pile designed to be anaerobic can consume cow carcasses.
| It does take several months.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| >designed to be anaerobic
|
| aerobic - with oxygen
|
| Anaerobic decomposes as well but it is not compost. Anaerobic
| decomposition is putrefaction and creates the "smell of death"
| tisthetruth wrote:
| I want to get dropped into an active volcano when I go. The heat
| is already there so no need for a furnace or manufacturing of a
| coffin. I guess the helicopter ride would be the greatest
| emitter.
| stuart78 wrote:
| Fully support this for myself, though I don't think I need my
| composed remains to be returned to the family. Not sure why, but
| that feels more grim than ashes on the mantle (though I don't
| feel a need for that either).
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| One example on the benefit of being returned to the family is
| that they can take you and plant a tree in you and then you
| grow into a tree, likely near the family, so that you can still
| be with them in a physical way!
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| I actually find anti-decay measures applied to corpses
| disgusting. I feel like corpses should be buried raw right into
| soil or in plain wood coffins at max, not marinated in
| formaldehyde and put in non-compostable coffins.
| cascom wrote:
| What happens to embedded e-waste/trash in humans (pace makers,
| artificial hips, implants, etc.)?
| chungy wrote:
| Seems it would be easy to remove non-compostable materials
| first.
| giardini wrote:
| I was told by an elderly foreign gentleman that he made his
| living by removing such things from bodies before burial or
| cremation. He said that the metals in teeth were most of his
| business.
| chucka9 wrote:
| The metals in vascular stents and coils is valuable too (but
| imagine trying to retrieve those).
|
| I know someone who saved up the ones dropped or otherwise
| opened and not used on a cath lab. I'm not sure what he did
| after that.
| Supermancho wrote:
| In the US, if possible, my heart valve will be cut out of my
| cadaver and sent back to the manufacturer for analysis. The
| devices from my body, that have been replaced over time, were
| tested until failure. The FDA is very interested in performance
| metrics of implanted devices. The materials are not recycled in
| the US afaik.
| javajosh wrote:
| I wonder if they could be recycled? Not joking. Those hip
| replacement parts are incredibly expensive; I'm sure there are
| folks who are in need and could use a cheaper option.
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| Repo Men (2010)
| ChrisRR wrote:
| Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
| rscho wrote:
| They are recycled in some places. Such as sub-saharan Africa
| BBC-vs-neolibs wrote:
| In Sweden they used to reuse pacemakers a couple decades
| back. Don't know about now. I think also American
| pacemakers are exported to India.
| paulpauper wrote:
| probably pales in comparison to other waste
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| Googling would answer your questions.
|
| Pacemakers are removed carefully, especially if they include
| RTGs.
|
| http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/degraw2/
|
| Prosthetic implants are typically not removed.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140311-body-parts-that-...
| rhacker wrote:
| Remind me to never buy soil from Oregon.
| elif wrote:
| I was really excited thinking this was going to be about
| humanure.
| paulpauper wrote:
| _Recompose, the country's first human composting funeral home
| does it like this: a corpse is placed in a cylinder with organic
| materials, like wood chips, plants, and straw, then heated and
| turned repeatedly for several weeks with a hook until it's broken
| down into a nutrient-rich soil that can be delivered back to the
| family or used for planting._
|
| It's like what the mafia used to do to dissolve bodies
| cwkoss wrote:
| Wow, the whole process only takes several weeks?
| rags2riches wrote:
| A simple backyard compost will go through chicken bones quite
| well once it gets going. I'm not surprised an optimized
| process can take care of a whole body in a matter of weeks.
| mc32 wrote:
| I mean, why do all this theater when there is a much better
| long lived and respected tradition: Burial-at-Sea. Roughly 60%
| of the US pop lives within a 100 miles of a seacoast.
|
| Wrap them in something organic for presentation, a weight
| stone, then, go out to sea (with family along option -others
| may be ok with remote video) and let them slip into the ocean
| like sailors buried at sea.
|
| No creepiness, no vicarious cannibalism via eating veggies
| nourished by uncle Vinnie or aunt Mathilda or anything.
|
| Traditional burial-at-sea.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Well... Would be more like crepiness on steroids, "final
| dungeon boss level".
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owKFlNU_T5w
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7t1WguYJyE
| petre wrote:
| How about burial in a volcano? All natural cremation.
| mc32 wrote:
| That could be an option for Hawai'i!
| kibwen wrote:
| Parts of the body will decompose at different rates, so it
| won't be long before parts of the body will detach from the
| part that is weighted down. 7,000 people in the US die every
| day, 2.6 million a year. Random body parts from millions upon
| millions of corpses quickly find their way onto beaches
| everywhere, to the delight of sunbathers.
| mc32 wrote:
| Was that reported around Leyte gulf and areas where
| thousands perished at sea? It may be a concern, but I'm not
| sure.
| kibwen wrote:
| I don't know about the WWII case, but in countries like
| the UK where it is legal to be buried at sea there are
| regulations about where you can perform the ceremony
| specifically because bodies do drift:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-guernsey-24224570
|
| Although the article mentions that this is the first time
| it's happened in 25 years, note that only about a dozen
| people every year choose to be buried in this way:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-38210497
| livueta wrote:
| It's definitely a thing even without combat areas: https:
| //en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salish_Sea_human_foot_discov...
|
| So if you scale up from the relatively small numbers of
| people who die (and whose bodies aren't recovered) by
| accident or suicide near/in water, it's probably
| reasonable to expect a lot more of this. Maybe your idea
| is workable if you go far enough out that any detached
| remnants are grabbed by the big oceanic gyres.
| philwelch wrote:
| Or if the people buried at sea aren't wearing anything
| too buoyant, such as sneakers.
| ssully wrote:
| As someone who lives in the middle of the United States,
| shipping my body out to the closest ocean for burial and
| flying family out to witness my burial doesn't seem very
| practical.
| mc32 wrote:
| We have inland seas. The Great Lakes are vast and they can
| be barged out to sea (we'd need agreements with Canada; but
| feasible)
|
| It may not be cost effective for some... but a large
| percentage (~60%) of the US pop live within a 100 miles
| from seashores...
| clajiness wrote:
| Lake Superior is perpetually cold and near-sterile when
| you get deep enough. Not the greatest place if you want
| bodies to decompose.
| jacobolus wrote:
| My understanding is that the EPA does not allow you to
| dump human corpses in lakes. You also need to go >3 miles
| out to sea. https://www.epa.gov/ocean-dumping/burial-sea
| mc32 wrote:
| Some entity was also probably not okay with composting
| bodies in your backyard --till this.
| jacobolus wrote:
| In California you can't bury a corpse in your backyard
| either. But in most states you can.
| philwelch wrote:
| I'm down with a "Viking funeral". Yes, I know that the
| Vikings didn't actually float their dead out to sea on
| perfectly good boats that were set on fire, but it's still a
| cool idea.
| slipframe wrote:
| What are the energy costs of transporting a body from inland
| out onto the ocean? Probably less than cremation I suppose.
| Still, with some slight modifications I think you could
| improve efficiency. Load the bodies into shipping containers,
| to take advantage of all that existing logistics
| infrastructure, then push the whole container over the side
| once the container ship is an appropriate distance from
| shore. You can even tell families that Vinnie and Mathilda
| have become an artificial reef.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Another pandemic, but this time with the Plague? No, please
| no shipping containers
|
| Every year every person in US produces >10 tons of CO2, any
| energy required for their body disposal is irrelevant.
| meristohm wrote:
| For anyone disturbed by the thought of a body being turned with
| a hook, consider who that person is since they died. My
| perspective is that they're a memory in whoever remembers. They
| have lasting impacts to varying degrees. Now they are a
| collection of elements, much of which supports many other
| living things. I care that the body is processed in a way
| towards most ecological reciprocity, whatever that may be for
| that region of the world.
| mirkules wrote:
| Your phrasing is very interesting: "consider who that person
| is since they died." It's interesting because you refer to
| the dead person in the present tense, "who it is," not "who
| it was". Yet, in the following sentence you say "they are a
| collection of elements." Even when attempting to state "cold
| hard facts," we cannot help but exhibit our humanity, and
| it's a reminder why we should treat the dead with respect. In
| my opinion, being alive is more than just a collection of
| atoms and the interactions between them. And in death, while
| the electrons stop moving in that particular way that made us
| alive, that "something special" still remains in the form of
| their memory.
| Erik816 wrote:
| Treating our dead with respect is probably one of the oldest
| signs of human culture. People care a lot about the bodies of
| their deceased loved ones. See Antigone by Sophocles. You're
| welcome to your views, but most people have strong, deeply
| felt emotions and opinions on how dead bodies should be
| properly handled.
| kibwen wrote:
| If this seems disrespectful, then I encourage you to look
| into what the embalming process actually entails, as (IMO)
| it's worse: https://youtu.be/B5-NtLmKUDE?t=201
| kelnos wrote:
| Things like this, though, show that those attitudes are
| changing. Not rapidly, and certainly not in a majority of
| people, but they are indeed changing.
| [deleted]
| at_a_remove wrote:
| I believe that there was someone in the Mafia whose procedure
| was not unlike the modern lye hydrolysis methods -- heat,
| pressure, and a basic solution. Rendering took only hours,
| supposedly, an efficient method of _Llupara bianca_.
| prepend wrote:
| This description seems unpleasant, especially the hook part. I
| expect they need some better description that doesn't involve
| people picturing themself or their loved ones being torn up by
| a hook.
| [deleted]
| conductr wrote:
| I didn't even consider that as a possible interpretation. I
| thought of the hook as a crank to turn the cylinder. But now
| you have me questioning which is correct?
| souldeux wrote:
| I personally pictured something similar to the dough hook
| attachment on my stand mixer
| tantalor wrote:
| This earlier article is less ambiguous,
|
| > Over the next 30 days, naturally-occurring microbes--and
| a few turnings with a tool similar to a dough hook--break
| the body down.
|
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/93wmd5/the-first-us-
| funeral-...
| conductr wrote:
| That's pretty interesting. Does leave me with a different
| opinion on the service. Not sure if good/bad, just
| different.
|
| Edit: after a few minutes of thought, I definitely like
| this less. Imagining my body like a pair of shoes banging
| around in the dryer or torn to shreds is not a great
| thought. In a way it's irrational. I don't think of
| cremation as my body in an inferno even thought that's
| what it is. I've always liked the idea of just having
| myself tossed in a hole and a tree planted over me. I've
| done this with my late dogs and it's always a joy to
| revisit the tree even after (especially after) years
| past. Gives me a feeling they are there still. It's odd
| but such is life, and death.
| mrkurt wrote:
| It sure ruins the illusion of "being at peace". Laying
| there and just slowly fading away? Peaceful. Getting
| stirred up so you break down faster? Ick.
|
| I'll probably get over it but I had a similar visceral
| reaction.
| ryanmcbride wrote:
| I don't think the bodies will mind. I know mine won't when
| I'm gone. Sure some particularly squeemish family members
| might have an issue with it but as long as it's in the
| deceased's will, and they entrusted the right person as
| executor of estate, it shouldn't be a problem.
|
| If it's legal by the time my clock is up I'd like a "burial"
| where they just throw my body into a forest and let nature
| take its course, but that one's probably gonna take a lot
| longer to be legal because of the worry that like, a coyote
| will drag an arm or something into a populated area.
| Previously my plan was to have my ashes pressed into a vinyl
| record of my music and distributed among friends and family
| but now this is a pretty appealing prospect.
|
| Anyone interested in eco-death is probably well aware of this
| youtube channel but if not you should check this out:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWo2-LHwGMM
| quesera wrote:
| Yes, that is not great marketing copy.
|
| But I suspect that if people knew what "embalming" means,
| they'd be squeamish about that as well.
|
| ...
|
| I was present for a cremation sale where the funeral director
| explained that they fire the body, then collect any metals
| (titanium screws etc) and sell them for scrap.
|
| This bothered me, but I can't say (still to this day) whether
| it was because it seemed way too graphic for the average
| bereaved family member, or if I was just offended that the
| crematorium thought it was OK to sell other peoples'
| property.
| incrudible wrote:
| This is abhorrent, as if it was taken unironically out of a
| dystopian science fiction novel.
|
| Decomposition is a natural process that happens to any corpse.
| It does not need to be optimized. That said, it does not need
| to be slowed down with embalming either.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Beware of articles like these. They are PR pieces profiling the
| services of a company. And making it seem like everyone is doing
| it. and how it is all the rage.
| throwkeep wrote:
| PG has an essay on that, submarine articles:
| http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
| datameta wrote:
| > Cremation-in which a body is burned into ash--is an energy suck
| and emits damaging pollutants and carbon dioxide into the
| atmosphere, contributing to global warming.
|
| > a corpse is placed in a cylinder with organic materials, like
| wood chips, plants, and straw, then heated and turned repeatedly
| for several weeks with a hook until it's broken down into a
| nutrient-rich soil
|
| I wonder how much energy it takes to complete the composting
| process and how they can ensure that the electricity needed (even
| if less than cremation) is generated by sustainable methods.
| soco wrote:
| I would think bone doesn't break down much during this process.
| So what are we left to do with the mixed-up skeleton?
| HKH2 wrote:
| Make jelly?
| verisimilitude wrote:
| Given prions, I would imagine this would be a step backward
| for public health.
| wavefunction wrote:
| That assumes prions.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| You know what they say: assume prions, or get kuru.
| soco wrote:
| That assumes public health.
| foxyv wrote:
| Aerobic bacteria in composters can eat bone, egg shells, and
| meat pretty well. If you are going to do it in a garden
| though you will want something to contain the smell and
| prevent breeding of pests.
|
| https://www.cleanairgardening.com/how-to-compost-meat/
| foxyv wrote:
| Turning a compost pile takes very little energy. So little in
| fact that a human can do it with one hand in a minute. Leave
| the container in the sun for heat, and turn it on an axle. In
| addition it's only once a day at most.
|
| Heat in the winter would be less than the amount used for those
| electric blankets. In the summer you could almost power the
| composter with a car battery.
|
| Cremation takes a about 40 kilowatt hours of electricity or
| fuel. The process usually requires very expensive furnaces that
| can get hot enough. In addition it requires special permits and
| there are a lot of regulations and zoning limitations.
|
| However, 40 kwh isn't that much compared to steel and concrete
| production. Especially since the per capita is literally 40kwh.
| Most people use more than that to brush their teeth. The real
| advantage (of composting) is that it makes a cheaper
| alternative for families of deceased.
| solomonb wrote:
| There are anerobic composting methods that are even more
| passive then what is described in the article.
|
| For example, in Bokashi composting you innoculate your
| organic matter with a blend of anerobic microbes (primarily
| Lacto Bacillus) store in anerobic conditions for a few weeks.
| When you empty the bucket it doesn't look especially
| decomposed but it smells sweet and pickled. You can then bury
| it in your yard and it rapidly decomposes into soil.
|
| This method can safely decompose meat, dairy, and all sorts
| of materials you wouldn't ordinarily consider safe for at
| home aerobic composting. I imagine it would be an ideal
| system for a compost burial process so long as the family is
| okay with the idea of fermenting their loved ones..
| cogman10 wrote:
| I'm sure someone can calculate it, but it wouldn't be much.
| It'd be an electric motor running slow with relatively light
| weight (<300lbs). Likely less than 10kWh for the entire
| process.
|
| As for sustainability, Wouldn't be hard to power the whole
| thing with a solar farm and batteries. That said, oregon is
| part of a set of states which draw a very large portion of
| their power from hydro.
| potiuper wrote:
| Environmentally naive:
| https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cemetery-soil-human-re...
| Promession, which is legal in the United Kingdom, Sweden, and
| South Korea, but not yet a reality is a better solution:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HD5Gt80H6s
| telesilla wrote:
| I hope to donate my body to science. Depending on the manner of
| death and location, it should be a matter of specifying it in
| your will.
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| This is really huge!!! I'll definitely choose this route when my
| time comes!
|
| Open burials for pets and such are also legal here in Oregon as
| long as it is 100 or so feet away from a water source, like a
| stream, pond, lake etc.
| helge9210 wrote:
| Soylent Green is people! (c)
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| Oy! Get back here you!
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| People didn't watch Cloud Atlas. D:
| rubyfan wrote:
| You beat me to it
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