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Oregon has legalized human composting

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Re: Oregon has legalized human composting

#171

Post by ClumsyPilot »

slipframe wrote: post #115
mc32 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cannib…

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 e…

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.

Re: Oregon has legalized human composting

#172

Post by philwelch »

mc32 wrote: post #106
paulpauper wrote: post #61

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

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 cannib…

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.

Re: Oregon has legalized human composting

#173

Post by hh3k0 »

drdavid wrote: post #164
yosamino wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I'd like a sky burial in Tibet, but that ain't gonna happen (at least not legally) unless things change.

Paying your respects to the vultures? That is quite romantic.

You could move to Tibet in order to have it eventually, though.

Re: Oregon has legalized human composting

#174

Post by philwelch »

livueta wrote: post #137
mc32 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was that reported around Leyte gulf and areas where thousands perished at sea? It may be a concern, but I’m not sure.

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 oc…

Or if the people buried at sea aren’t wearing anything too buoyant, such as sneakers.

Re: Oregon has legalized human composting

#175

Post by ClumsyPilot »

1-6 wrote: post #26
ed_balls wrote: post #19

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 he…

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.

Actually putting in into nuclear waste solves the problem forever

Re: Oregon has legalized human composting

#176

Post by ClumsyPilot »

beambot wrote: post #97
prepend wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I was of the impression that Prions are notoriously impervious to heat. They were said to withstand typical disinfecting protocols using an autoclave (250°F 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 (900°F and above) will reliably destroy a prion. https://dw…

900°F is barely temperature of a campfire

Re: Oregon has legalized human composting

#177

Post by ClumsyPilot »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #48
ed_balls wrote: post #19

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 he…

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.

"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

Re: Oregon has legalized human composting

#178

Post by maininformer »

lph wrote: post #131

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…

I fully agree with you mother, may she rest in peace.

I have been thinking as well, what if after passing away of a family member we plant their favorite fruit tree with them. After generations there will be a beautiful garden.

People usually laugh at this idea; maybe rightfully so, but there is something profound in it about feeding the plants and by proxy animals and fellow people who fed us.

Re: Oregon has legalized human composting

#180

Post by TchoBeer »

mardifoufs wrote: post #27
wonderwonder wrote: post #11

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.

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)

Interesting how jews have this too. I wonder where this practice came from.
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