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Oregon has legalized human composting

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Re: Oregon has legalized human composting

#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

Re: Oregon has legalized human composting

#64

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…

Or a big friggin fresnel lens.

This would be a spectacular way to go! Well, post-go.

Re: Oregon has legalized human composting

#65

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.

Let's hope that that "something" wasn't smaller populations.

Re: Oregon has legalized human composting

#66
post #53
post #3

> Cremation–in which a body is burned into ash—is an energy suck and emits damaging pollutants and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming. > 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 I wonder how much energy it takes to complete…

Turning a compost pile takes very little energy. So little in fact that a human can do it with one hand in a minute. Leave the container in the sun for heat, and turn it on an axle. In addition it's only once a day at most. Heat in the winter would be less than the amount used for those electric blankets. In the summer you could almost power the composter with a car battery. Cremation takes a about 40 kilowatt hours…

There are anerobic composting methods that are even more passive then what is described in the article.

For example, in Bokashi composting you innoculate your organic matter with a blend of anerobic microbes (primarily Lacto Bacillus) store in anerobic conditions for a few weeks. When you empty the bucket it doesn't look especially decomposed but it smells sweet and pickled. You can then bury it in your yard and it rapidly decomposes into soil.

This method can safely decompose meat, dairy, and all sorts of materials you wouldn't ordinarily consider safe for at home aerobic composting. I imagine it would be an ideal system for a compost burial process so long as the family is okay with the idea of fermenting their loved ones..

Re: Oregon has legalized human composting

#67
post #2

What happens to embedded e-waste/trash in humans (pace makers, artificial hips, implants, etc.)?

I was told by an elderly foreign gentleman that he made his living by removing such things from bodies before burial or cremation. He said that the metals in teeth were most of his business.

Re: Oregon has legalized human composting

#68
post #59
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea if this is true or not... and that worries me. I think it's not, but, maybe?

It's just another Catacombs of Paris, which to be fair has stagnated, so maybe a new agile startup can do better.

It really is ripe for disruption. Will need significant upfront capital infusions, though, and really the ultimate play is on the cloud or possibly blockchain which has some bootstrapping issues. Watching this space closely.

Re: Oregon has legalized human composting

#69

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.

> Why can't people just opt to be buried without embalming or a casket?

The article mentions the amount of land that this uses. I’d imagine that’s a big part of it.

Re: Oregon has legalized human composting

#70
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Let's hope that that "something" wasn't smaller populations.

It does make one wonder about oral traditions of 'cursed' lands...
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