One example is clay. Burying in clay rich ground will slow decay because it limits the flow of air.
Another example is from the late 1950s where people would be buried in plastic wrap, to make the burial process more sanitary. They did this for 15-20 years. None of those bodies have decomposed much, but worse is that all the liquids are trapped inside the plastic :|
People are long-lived apex predators, wouldn't this have a heavy metal problem? Tuna and other apex predators tend to be dangerous to eat due to the buildup of pollutants inside them, and they don't live nearly as long or eat nearly as much as a human.
And a potential prion problem as well. Plants grown in prion-contaminated soil can absorb prions, and animals who subsequently eat the plants can become infected. [1] And while composting might be enough to destroy most infectious diseases, it certainly isn't enough to denature prions.
The introduction of cremation and the establishment of the first necropolis' in Paris (I think) and London was a huge social advance. Being able to talk openly and frankly about modes of interment, the recognition of a growing class of atheists, deists but not christians, a migrant population created many new states. London had a special railway line to the cemetary, and you got black-lined ticket to ride the coffin-train-hearse.
At times (from 1660s), to ensure the survival of the wool industry and raise taxes for the state, the shroud was a defined quantity of wool cloth, of a stated quality, which had to be sufficient to wrap the corpse like a Christmas cracker, tied head and toe. I like to imagine it was much like a farmer growing grapes destined for the wine-lake: you shear sheep, to make cloth, to wrap corpses, to earn taxes for the national economy.
I don't see why we can't get to the same kind of open-minded "why not" with composting. We've already had woven coffins, and the ending of routine embalming in many cultures. The liquid biological digester I find slightly more mechanistically worrying. Nobody talks about what you do with the fluids afterward (I think its using Lye or some other caustic solvent to dispose, and its not aiming to fertilize trees the way composting is)
Thankfully there's a good choice of natural and forest burials in the UK now. Surprisingly it can be the cheaper option. Actual composting is but a small step from there...
Burial at sea used to be another natural option. A body sewed into sail canvas, weighted with rocks (or cannon balls), which continued beyond WW2. Now it's a whole damn full size coffin, and regulations for the minimum amount of weight bolted to it - steel or concrete!
Interestingly, routine embalming is actually relatively new. While embalming itself has of course existed for millennia, it wasn't widely practiced (at least in the West) until the American Civil War.
In some places you can go for a 'natural' burial where you are minimally processed and simply placed in the ground in basically a natural material burial shroud.
In a lot of places, however, this is highly illegal and there are minimum requirements for burial (which can include embalming and/or a casket and/or a concrete and/or a burial vault which is basically a concrete sarcophagus that caskets go in).
Here in Indiana the only requirement is you have to be placed in a designated cemetery or graveyard 'within a reasonable time' however, pretty much every cemetery here requires a casket and a burial vault.
I used to bury people for a living and always found it so dumb, I'd have to excavate the grave, get chains under a vault and lift it with the backhoe, very slowly drive it out to the grave to prevent it swinging and cracking, lower it into the hole, go put the backhoe up, come back and jump down int he grave with a dust pan and get any dirt that fell into the vault and climb back out without knocking more in, cover it with a tarp and a piece of plywood then do prep an hour or so before the body was to arrive to have it ready for the graveside service.
Then... people would throw handfuls of dirt into the vault eyetwitch and after they left I'd remove all the fake grass and stuff, go get the small tractor, wrestle the vault lid into the front loader bucket, slowly drive out to the grave, wrestle it out of the bucket and get some straps on it, lift hte straps with the bucket and lower it down, let slack out slowly on one end to lower one side of the lid on, remove the straps, lower it more and then play 'don't crush my fingers' while I'm laying next to the grave trying to get the straps out without slamming the lid down and breaking it.
THEN I could put the dirt back and get back to cutting several acres of grass and walking around with a backpack full of diesel to weed eat while trying not to get sun poisoning again.
Laws requiring embalming/caskets are pretty uncommon. There aren't any laws at the US Federal level, and only a handful of states have any restrictions. Finding a funeral director to provide a natural burial can be more difficult, although most large cities have at least one option.
For those interested in the thermodynamics, composting generates heat and methane/CO2 emissions. If the composting object (body, trash, etc.) sufficiently disrupts the soil nutrient level (metal content, etc.), it becomes less suitable for healthy plant growth.
There is a growing debate as to whether it is better to incinerate (cremate) for energy generation/offsetting, because the output can be more effectively filtered/separated. (One must of course plant organic matter to offset CO2 output).
This is why many European countries incinerate their waste to reduce risk of disrupting the land.
I thought Muslims perform their burials in style of compost.
In Pakistan,
The dead body is wrapped in cloth shroud and the grave is dug six feet and is lined with concrete blocks (ground is bare Earth). Coffin is not used. The body is laid in the grave then if I remember correctly, grave is covered partially (25% - 33%?) with soil and then thick concrete/stone slabs are placed on top to cover the grave. After that, the grave is covered with mound of Earth.
I personally want to be interred in a mushroom infused burial suit [0]. The idea of going back to the progenitor fungal network really comforts me actually.
and the energy/greenhouse gas emission costs of cremation, I can see this taking off.
There's a picture and caption not discussed in the text:
> Katrina Spade, upper left, the founder and CEO of Recompose, a company that hopes to use composting as an alternative to burying or cremating human remains, looks on Tuesday, May 21, 2019, as Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, centre, signs a bill into law at the Capitol in Olympia, Wash., that allows licensed facilities to offer "natural organic reduction," which turns a body into soil in a span of several weeks. (Ted S. Warren/AP Photo)
Was Spade involved in bringing that legislation about?
My will specifies above-ground consumption by insects, followed by a clear urethane casting resin ossuary.
It also specifies cats-eye cubic zirconium retroreflectors in the eye sockets of the skull. It gives me a little thrill to imagine being discovered in a storage unit 200 years from now and creeping someone out because they saw the eyes glow from their flashlight.
Having a little trouble finding 25 mm diameter spheres of cubic zirconium, though, so I can't die yet. I can get a big chunk of it and maybe cut that down in a lathe, but I'd almost rather buy 5mm beads and make an array.
I would love to know how this process compares to simple burial in a wicker basket or something like that. I always assumed that decomposition in soil, without any embalming chemicals or hardwood coffin, would be about as natural as decomposition would get.
I guess the compost from this process would be of higher quality, but compared to burying your loved one in a machine where they have to decompose for a few weeks, I think returning them straight to the earth would feel better for the relatives.
In David Weber's Honor Harrington series, the original settlers of one of the planets (Grayson) found the soil was too polluted with heavy metals that they needed to create purified soil of their own for growing food. So amongst other things they buried people in their gardens, though by the time of the stories, they had transitioned away from being food gardens.
Natural burial is completely different to composting. Have you read the article?
When someone dies, their body is taken to a human composting facility [..] After wrapping the deceased in a simple shroud, friends and family carry the body to the top of the core which contains the natural decomposition system [..] It would be done in a contained vessel which [..] would be rotated to provide physical disruption so oxygen could access all parts of the composting material. This would also help control the moisture level.
By the time we completed our trials, we were developing material that was very pleasant to handle, it was a very fine compost that was relatively stable, [and] it smelled good
Where in Europe is this standard practice, exactly?
AFAIK that's not really true, europeans are not usually highly embalmed but they're mostly buried in coffins in vaults rented for years or decades (depending on the country).
AFAIK https://i2.wp.com/www.talkdeath.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/... is a pretty typical-looking cemetery for western europe at least (some countries tend towards just the headstone and no vault, but as an other commenter notes that doesn't mean the body readily decomposes either)
I wanted to say that there's plenty of embalming in Europe, but I figured I'd check to verify first. Turns out that in Netherland until 2009 it used to be illegal to embalm the dead, with an exception for members of the royal family.
I completely agree with this method - I’ve just opted to be put in a faux coffin filled with my body and 100lbs of explosives. That should take care of “scattering my remains”.
Seems like a definite “slam bang” finish to whatever my life amounts to.
[+] [-] m-p-3|6 years ago|reply
I already specified it in my will to go for such a solution or in the same vein, as long as it remain as eco-friendly as possible.
I really like the idea of having a tree with my name on it, instead of a tombstone.
[+] [-] Waterluvian|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ceejayoz|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hmottestad|6 years ago|reply
One example is clay. Burying in clay rich ground will slow decay because it limits the flow of air.
Another example is from the late 1950s where people would be buried in plastic wrap, to make the burial process more sanitary. They did this for 15-20 years. None of those bodies have decomposed much, but worse is that all the liquids are trapped inside the plastic :|
[+] [-] magashna|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bregma|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] whatshisface|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nokcha|6 years ago|reply
[1] Sandra Pritzkow et al. "Grass plants bind, retain, uptake, and transport infectious prions." Cell Reports (2015). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4449294/
[+] [-] praptak|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] refurb|6 years ago|reply
Our diet is much more varied.
[+] [-] bregma|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ggm|6 years ago|reply
At times (from 1660s), to ensure the survival of the wool industry and raise taxes for the state, the shroud was a defined quantity of wool cloth, of a stated quality, which had to be sufficient to wrap the corpse like a Christmas cracker, tied head and toe. I like to imagine it was much like a farmer growing grapes destined for the wine-lake: you shear sheep, to make cloth, to wrap corpses, to earn taxes for the national economy.
I don't see why we can't get to the same kind of open-minded "why not" with composting. We've already had woven coffins, and the ending of routine embalming in many cultures. The liquid biological digester I find slightly more mechanistically worrying. Nobody talks about what you do with the fluids afterward (I think its using Lye or some other caustic solvent to dispose, and its not aiming to fertilize trees the way composting is)
[+] [-] NeedMoreTea|6 years ago|reply
Burial at sea used to be another natural option. A body sewed into sail canvas, weighted with rocks (or cannon balls), which continued beyond WW2. Now it's a whole damn full size coffin, and regulations for the minimum amount of weight bolted to it - steel or concrete!
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/burial-at-sea-fur...
[+] [-] ARandomerDude|6 years ago|reply
Interestingly, routine embalming is actually relatively new. While embalming itself has of course existed for millennia, it wasn't widely practiced (at least in the West) until the American Civil War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embalming#History
[+] [-] ryanmercer|6 years ago|reply
In a lot of places, however, this is highly illegal and there are minimum requirements for burial (which can include embalming and/or a casket and/or a concrete and/or a burial vault which is basically a concrete sarcophagus that caskets go in).
Here in Indiana the only requirement is you have to be placed in a designated cemetery or graveyard 'within a reasonable time' however, pretty much every cemetery here requires a casket and a burial vault.
I used to bury people for a living and always found it so dumb, I'd have to excavate the grave, get chains under a vault and lift it with the backhoe, very slowly drive it out to the grave to prevent it swinging and cracking, lower it into the hole, go put the backhoe up, come back and jump down int he grave with a dust pan and get any dirt that fell into the vault and climb back out without knocking more in, cover it with a tarp and a piece of plywood then do prep an hour or so before the body was to arrive to have it ready for the graveside service.
Then... people would throw handfuls of dirt into the vault eyetwitch and after they left I'd remove all the fake grass and stuff, go get the small tractor, wrestle the vault lid into the front loader bucket, slowly drive out to the grave, wrestle it out of the bucket and get some straps on it, lift hte straps with the bucket and lower it down, let slack out slowly on one end to lower one side of the lid on, remove the straps, lower it more and then play 'don't crush my fingers' while I'm laying next to the grave trying to get the straps out without slamming the lid down and breaking it.
THEN I could put the dirt back and get back to cutting several acres of grass and walking around with a backpack full of diesel to weed eat while trying not to get sun poisoning again.
Man, do not miss that job.
[+] [-] Mvhsz|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coinerone|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] guggle|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mensetmanusman|6 years ago|reply
There is a growing debate as to whether it is better to incinerate (cremate) for energy generation/offsetting, because the output can be more effectively filtered/separated. (One must of course plant organic matter to offset CO2 output).
This is why many European countries incinerate their waste to reduce risk of disrupting the land.
[+] [-] m23khan|6 years ago|reply
In Pakistan,
The dead body is wrapped in cloth shroud and the grave is dug six feet and is lined with concrete blocks (ground is bare Earth). Coffin is not used. The body is laid in the grave then if I remember correctly, grave is covered partially (25% - 33%?) with soil and then thick concrete/stone slabs are placed on top to cover the grave. After that, the grave is covered with mound of Earth.
[+] [-] dusted|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnulinux|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] L_226|6 years ago|reply
[0] - https://coeio.com/coeio-story/
[+] [-] apo|6 years ago|reply
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bisnow/2017/11/03/urban-cemeter...
and the energy/greenhouse gas emission costs of cremation, I can see this taking off.
There's a picture and caption not discussed in the text:
> Katrina Spade, upper left, the founder and CEO of Recompose, a company that hopes to use composting as an alternative to burying or cremating human remains, looks on Tuesday, May 21, 2019, as Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, centre, signs a bill into law at the Capitol in Olympia, Wash., that allows licensed facilities to offer "natural organic reduction," which turns a body into soil in a span of several weeks. (Ted S. Warren/AP Photo)
Was Spade involved in bringing that legislation about?
[+] [-] whatshisface|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sprocketonline|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] logfromblammo|6 years ago|reply
It also specifies cats-eye cubic zirconium retroreflectors in the eye sockets of the skull. It gives me a little thrill to imagine being discovered in a storage unit 200 years from now and creeping someone out because they saw the eyes glow from their flashlight.
Having a little trouble finding 25 mm diameter spheres of cubic zirconium, though, so I can't die yet. I can get a big chunk of it and maybe cut that down in a lathe, but I'd almost rather buy 5mm beads and make an array.
[+] [-] mcv|6 years ago|reply
I guess the compost from this process would be of higher quality, but compared to burying your loved one in a machine where they have to decompose for a few weeks, I think returning them straight to the earth would feel better for the relatives.
[+] [-] antsoul|6 years ago|reply
Sky Burial would be my favorite way to go.
[+] [-] gnur|6 years ago|reply
It goes into detail how on a generation ship the bodies are composted and become nutrients to grew new food upon.
[+] [-] aatharuv|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asdfman123|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 481092|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] summm|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tremon|6 years ago|reply
When someone dies, their body is taken to a human composting facility [..] After wrapping the deceased in a simple shroud, friends and family carry the body to the top of the core which contains the natural decomposition system [..] It would be done in a contained vessel which [..] would be rotated to provide physical disruption so oxygen could access all parts of the composting material. This would also help control the moisture level.
By the time we completed our trials, we were developing material that was very pleasant to handle, it was a very fine compost that was relatively stable, [and] it smelled good
Where in Europe is this standard practice, exactly?
[+] [-] masklinn|6 years ago|reply
AFAIK that's not really true, europeans are not usually highly embalmed but they're mostly buried in coffins in vaults rented for years or decades (depending on the country).
AFAIK https://i2.wp.com/www.talkdeath.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/... is a pretty typical-looking cemetery for western europe at least (some countries tend towards just the headstone and no vault, but as an other commenter notes that doesn't mean the body readily decomposes either)
[+] [-] mcv|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chkaloon|6 years ago|reply
http://www.hngnews.com/lodi_enterprise/article_37e5f4bf-f699...
[+] [-] algaeontoast|6 years ago|reply
Seems like a definite “slam bang” finish to whatever my life amounts to.
[+] [-] Nelkins|6 years ago|reply
Opens up some grim possibilities though.