I hate to tell you this, but it is already happening in California. (trigger warning?)
This is a disgusting secret of the funerary industry. Older less costly caskets were breathable, but the casket makers have been adding “features” such as complete seal around the casket, on the idea that people will pay more so that their dearly departed’s corpse will “last longer.” In truth, this has changed the human decomposition process from one of gradual drying to the same thing that happens to plastic wrapped food left outside, which is to say your loved one becomes a puddle.
A few decades ago, a member of the House of Lords wanted to donate his body to the Battersea Dogs Home. The trustees of the Home were very diplomatic in turning down the offer, explaining that no slight was intended on the nutritional quality of his carcass.
On one of my trips to Australia I got off the plane and stopped off at the bathroom and was surprised to find signs up over the urinals saying not to drink the water. I found my friend at departures and on the drive back to his place I mentioned it - he got all excited to explain it was because Sydney airport had recently changed over to greywater as a conservation effort. Before he got too deep into explaining how it worked I had to cut him off and say “I get that it’s a great idea, but my question was more about why do Australians need signs above urinals to inform them it’s unsafe to drink from”
My first guess it’s for legal/liability reasons. In most places the water used to flush toilets and the like uses clean water. So since their system is using greywater they might be putting the disclaimer there out of necessity even if it’s a dumb/weird sign to put up.
“Please do not throw cigarette butts into the urinal, as it makes them soggy and hard to light”
from a sign in the loo at the Glendambo Roadhouse.
More seriously, they’re legally required to put a warning notice on any tap or appliance that uses grey water. They could have written in exceptions for situations like this, but decided to opt for simplicity in the law.
If that restroom was at an international airport then the sign might not have been intended for Australians, but those crazy foreign travelers who the airport designers might have assumed (fairly or otherwise) wouldn’t know any better.
And that reminds me of a weird interior design trend that seems to be afflicting some of the hipster restaurants in the bay area; communal sinks outside of the restrooms, which look like unrinal troughs.
Couldn’t find an English version at a pinch.
The TL;DR is that your body is cremated and the ashes are buried under a tree in a section of a forest that is set aside for this sort of burial.
I like the communal sink. It saves space and plumbing costs, it helps break down gender barriers, and it has a clever societal hack: after you’ve used the toilet, you must walk past the communal sink so everyone will know if you don’t wash your hands.
Lye is scary stuff. It can be burning big holes in your hands, and you don’t notice. I guess the saponification of the nerve endings doesn’t trigger a depolarisation, so no pain, or something.
Or so I hear from a friend.
A green burial site near me does this, though they plant the trees in a different area to the graves- this is to avoid the tree’s roots pulling up human remains if they blow over in a storm.
The burial I attended there used a wicker coffin; a friend of a friend makes felt coffins.
