Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/04/22/human-composting-may-soon-be-l.html
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Good. Modern christian burial practices are a dreadful glutton of arable land.
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I like that they’re thinking outside of the standard burial box but oh my god can you imagine the smell?
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I’m curious how this service will handle the parts of the body that don’t rapidly decompose (bones, teeth …) and the artificial parts that we add to our bodies that don’t decompose at all (replacement joints, breast implants …).
Crematories usually remove silicon implants before cremation because they gum up the works, and the valuable metals from joint replacements and such are separated from the ash and sold to specialty metal recyclers. They grind the large bone fragments so that everything is mostly uniform in size, unidentifiable and easy to scatter or spread. I assume the “composteries” would have to do something similar?
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I think it would be less of a hassle to simply be buried in a wicker casket.
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Step 1 of THE PLAN.
Wait until you see Step 2…
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This is not much different from cremation. Not convinced? Just roll it around in your head for a little while.
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I can imagine shoveling the skull in with the carrots might be unsettling.
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Decorative planters?
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Some people do manage…
Remember to check for radioactivity.
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I was thinking more along the lines of the “sentenced to be recycled” scene from Waterworld.
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I believe they tried that in a remote section of the UK in the early 70’s
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How does Soylent Green taste?
Depends on the people.
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Wouldn’t that be considered a cremation though? That method doesn’t use any fossil fuels, so that would be a plus.
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The burning would put a good amount of CO2 in the air. But on the upside, wicker is a byproduct that is typically discarded. But I am sure Pier 1 Imports and Pottery Barn would object to the diversion of resources away from them.
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badum tiss
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Personally, I’m holding out for:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial
Sky burial (Tibetan: བྱ་གཏོར་, Wylie: bya gtor , lit. “bird-scattered”[1]) is a funeral practice in which a human corpse is placed on a mountaintop to decomposewhile exposed to the elements or to be eaten by scavenging animals, especially carrion birds. It is a specific type of the general practice of excarnation.
That said, isn’t there concern about the return of that many pharmacological compounds directly into the food chain? We’re already turning fish into hermaphrodites with the stuff we piss out.
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Unfortunately, I don’t have to. I know. Writers sometimes describe it as ‘sickly sweet’. Pretty much hits it right on the nose (as it were). Still, I like this idea. I’ve considered going to a body farm when dead just so I could still be of some use.
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