Dead bodies can soon be liquified with new California law

[smut_clyde]

So I looked up “osophone” to see if it was the osseous equivalent of “xylophone”, only to discover that Hugo Gernsback had coined the word in 1923 while patenting the idea of bone-conduction headphones.

[One_Brown_Mouse]

@alan_olsen

So Crematoriums will start selling real creamer?

A liquefaction tank is definitely a non-dairy creamer

[anon85905360]

And now, the business news. Food giant “Soilent” has announced a line of new products, claiming…

[Fef]

“Ashes to ashes, goop to goop.”
– New New International Version

[teknocholer]

My motto has always been “go with the flow”.

[Blaze_Curry]

I often think of that as well: feeding the earth just seems right.
Why take up space with a casket/concrete cap, when trees and bugs and soil could definitely make use of my body?

[CLamb]

@smut_clyde

thank those who choose the liquidy way out for lowering the carbon footprint, as traditional burials tend to be more harmful to the environment

I am not entirely convinced that creating enough lye to dissolve a body is an energy-free process. Lye doesn’t just happen. It has to be manufactured.

Pouring the used lye down the drain is not necessarily environment-friendly either… but it shifts the burden to someone else’s environment, which I guess is good enough.

Wouldn’t a big blender be more environment-friendly?

[j9c]

These California folks absolutely are on the right track, and I am thrilled they are going to be taken more seriously (finally):

Greywater Action - For a sustainable water culture

We have taken note of their work here in Austin, for years now, and at the environmental engineering firm where I work, we have been working with the City of Austin’s Graywater Working Group to get some traction re: this, the easiest, really, simplest personal action one can do to reuse perfectly good water. It’s a small step–I will be the first to admit this.

GrayWater-FAQ.pdf

I gotta say, the Australians are leading the way. All of us in arid regions with lengthy dry spells, droughts, water shortages and more would do well to steal all their moves:

Blows.
My.
Mind.

They freakin’ nailed it!

[Medievalist]

I’ve always wanted a real sky burial, I like the way the monks collect the bones and make things out of them. Or else the towers of silence gig, I also like the idea of my flesh nourishing flying dinosaurs.

But the current plan is one or the other of the following:

• bury me intact, unenbalmed, no coffin, with my pockets full of acorns.
• my family and friends repeatedly promise me that they will do the above, but actually just do whatever’s cheap and convenient since I’m unlikely to know or care about it.

[Grey_Devil]

I don’t think i care one way or another. I’ll be dead and gone. My preference is to get cremated but ultimately whatever helps my family process my death the best is what they can do. I would prefer cremation though because the idea of using up land for an indefinite length of time to house my remains seems wasteful and pointless.

[Medievalist]

Cremation just trades using up land for using up air and fuel, though. Either way, your final contribution to your fellow creatures is going to be pollution.

I’d rather be bird food, or fertilizer .

@Grey_Devil

ultimately whatever helps my family process my death the best is what they can do

A more enlightened viewpoint than mine! I’m still obsessing over controlling the consequences of my body’s actions even after I’m dead. Probably not wisdom.

[anon85905360]

Isn’t that from a laxative ad?

[Grey_Devil]

@Medievalist

Cremation just trades using up land for using up air and fuel, though

The issue with graveyards is that they need to be kept neat. All that grass mowing continually uses resources, it also takes up valuable space that could be used for other things.

Now it’d be pretty great if graveyards used trees as a memorial for a person then we could guerrilla-style create parks and forests.

[SirValence]

I want my remains to be ground up for catfood.

[Brainspore]

@Medievalist

Cremation just trades using up land for using up air and fuel, though. Either way, your final contribution to your fellow creatures is going to be pollution.

I got in an argument with a cryonics fan who suggested that having their body frozen after death was actually better for the environment because the carbon from their body would be sequestered from entering the atmosphere. Apparently it didn’t occur to them that “requiring constant refrigeration” is one of the few ways a dead person can continue to amass a large carbon footprint even decades or centuries after death.

[Grey_Devil]

Which a fussy cat will refuse to eat.

[Medievalist]

@Grey_Devil

Now it’d be pretty great if graveyards used trees as a memorial for a person then we could guerrilla-style create parks and forests.

A movement already in progress! See Be a Tree for example. When I was researching it, years ago, the closest place I could find was in the Carolinas, but natural burial sites are getting more common.

[Mindysan33]

Makes more sense enviromentally as well. There is also stuff like this, which I think @milliefink once told me about:

Capsula Mundi

[Mindysan33]

There are cemeteries that are more natural like settings, though. There is such a place on a nearby mountain, which also has a monastery on it.

[Medievalist]

@knoxblox

But I want my bones to remain intact, so someone can build a creepy chair out of them!

Or a cage, of course.

He’s just an excitable boy!