Don't bury or cremate – soon you may compost your corpse

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)

In Canada, or at least where I am, cremation is a much more common method of disposal. We do ceremonies in a funeral parlor, sometimes there is an urn, sometimes not. There isn't attachment to the corpse. I don't see why composting would be disrespectful.

Letting a body burn, rot or being mummified isn't any more respectful in my eyes.

I'm not too concerned about the transmission of diseases after composting (the presence of pathogens in the resulting compost will have to be assessed, but I don't expect them to fare well in soil. Prions may be harder to get rid of...).

My main concern would be about the plastics and metals from prosthesis and tooth fillings that would end up in there...

Not naming the Recompose "Product" 'Soil-End Green' is a missed opportunity.

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.

Man, do not miss that job.