6 ms·

I understand that the choice/decision to cremate the self is personal. But I think it stops where the personal starts affecting us all. Is cremation that neglig

by jjoe 11y ago

I understand that the choice/decision to cremate the self is personal. But I think it stops where the personal starts affecting us all. Is cremation that negligible of an issue for the environment?

gambiting 11y ago
Burying in a coffin requires wood and precious land space. What else do you propose? Burial at sea? A boat that would take your body there would also burn oil. I mean, there's a million more wasteful things that you can complain about, other than how we dispose of our bodies after death.
- nsxwolf 11y ago
  Why not just liquify bodies with chemicals and then flush them down the drain?
  - outworlder 11y ago
    Down the drain? As in, the city's waste treatment plant? I for one don't want to drink liquefied brains.
    - smileysteve 11y ago
      ... Where do you think fish biodegrade to? Eventually bodies make it to the ground, which then eventually make it to the air...
      - kweinber 11y ago
        "Where do you think fish biodegrade to?" Soylent 1.5, that was just before they switched to algal oil. I wonder what Soylent 3.0 will be made of?
    - PhasmaFelis 11y ago
      Is that worse than drinking liquefied shit? Because that's also going into the waste treatment plant, and in far larger quantities than even large-scale corpse disposal would produce. Every molecule of H20 you've every drunk has been part of a disgusting biological process at some point. But homeopathy isn't real; the water doesn't remember.
      - nokcha 11y ago
        >Is that worse than drinking liquefied shit? Yes, or more precisely, wastewater treatment plants can neutralize most fecal-borne pathogens, but they are unable to neutralize prions, the infectious agent behind transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE). In fact, in some cases, prions even remained infectious after incineration at 600°C [1]. [1] Brown, Paul, et al. "New studies on the heat resistance of hamster-adapted scrapie agent: threshold survival after ashing at 600°C suggests an inorganic template of replication." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97.7 (2000): 3418-3421. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Edward_Rau/publication/12598598_New_studies_on_the_heat_resistance_of_hamster-adapted_scrapie_agent_Threshold_survival_after_ashing_at_600C_suggests_an_inorganic_template_of_replication/links/54597bf50cf2cf516483d241.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Edward_Rau/publication/...
  - sithadmin 11y ago
    Why not liquify them and turn them into biofuel? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization
  - vacri 11y ago
    "chemicals" also take energy to create, and you still have to deal with the environmental effects of the waste products from the process.
    - nsxwolf 11y ago
      How about composting?
  - WalterBright 11y ago
    Why has nobody mentioned making soylent green yet? :)
    - zanny 11y ago
      Of course the creator of D wants to eat liquefied dead people. Hey, you're way smarter than me, so if you are on board with the idea I'll give it a go! Lets eat our dead! xD
- Spooky23 11y ago
  It's environmental paralysis. Perhaps we'd consume less energy rotting in place. If you died in the office, you'd get bonus karma for shutting the office down, reducing carbon emissions from commuting.
cpwright 11y ago
Compared to the energy you will use throughout your life, the energy used for a cremation is trivial (about a 5,000 mile drive). The alternative (burial) impacts the environment considerably as well. There is plenty of land devoted to cemeteries. Trees or metal are used (once) for the casket. In many places, you also need a concrete vault, which would add to the impact.
- jjoe 11y ago
  But the resulting ash isn't biodegradable. Cemetery land can be reused after full decomposition and after enough time has passed.
  - gknoy 11y ago
    Why are the ashes from cremation not biodegradeable?
  - gambiting 11y ago
    How is it not biodegradable? It's mostly carbon and calcium, right? In which case it's as natural as it can be - saying it's not biodegradable is like saying that rocks are not biodegradable. You could probably use it as a fertilizer(not that you would want to, respect towards the deceased and all that) and it would be absolutely fine. Cemetery land is essentially locked for hundreds of years, probably more since no one wants to be turning 500-year old graves into farmland.
    - cptskippy 11y ago
      > You could probably use it as a fertilizer(not that you would want to, respect towards the deceased and all that) That's exactly what I'd want my ashes used for.
      - sandworm101 11y ago
        That's what happens to pet ashes in my area. There is a farm outside of town that accepts the ash and ploughs it into fields.
arjie 11y ago
If you don't want to be cremated or buried, there are these "natural death"[0] places that will perform woodland burials for you. It's pretty cool. You are buried out on a meadow somewhere in a biodegradable coffin without being embalmed and with a tree over you. Not advocating banning cremations or anything. Just found that cool. 0: http://www.naturaldeath.org.uk/ http://www.naturaldeath.org.uk/
- uremog 11y ago
  I heard in a TED talk that you can now buy a "mushroom suit" that acts as a substrate and is laced with nutrient so that you grow mushrooms when buried.
- sandworm101 11y ago
  This isn't legal in many jurisdictions. When done correctly I'm sure it is perfectly safe and dignified. But we have rules about the disposal of bodies for a reason. Not everyone appreciates people turning meadows into their personal burial grounds. There are some serious questions being asked about natural burials and pharmaceuticals. Dead bodies these days are cocktails of drugs, synthetic body parts (knee/hip replacements) even radionuclides. Whether the mushroom suit can deal with all of that properly remains an open question.
  - arjie 11y ago
    Well, obviously one can't go around burying bodies willy-nilly. I do not believe that needs stating.
  - smallreader 11y ago
    It's legal in virtually all jurisdictions, provided the proper steps are followed to organize as a cemetery, comply with laws, coordinate with funeral directors etc. Basic principles of no embalming, no vault, simple coffin or shroud, are more or less identical to Jewish and Muslim practices, practiced in every state. Moreover there are no ecological concerns versus conventional burial, except that conventional burial typically involves sticking a lot of concrete, steel, and treated wood in the ground. Whereas natural burial uses fewer resources and conserves land in a natural state. Embalming does nothing regarding drugs or radionucleotides in the body. It simply adds embalming fluid consisting mostly of formaldehyde that decomposes after burial. Removing implants may or may not be done for both conventional and "natural" burial, no difference; it's always done for cremation since incineration is involved. The "mushroom suit" innovation is not a common green burial practice at this time.
theophrastus 11y ago
India, who's Hindu population require cremation as a death rite, and really needs to worry about deforestation, has been investigating direct focused solar cremations, ("Huge two parabolas of 32 m2 concentrate solar radiation"[1]). I always thought that might be an interesting way to do it, particularly if one's body could be placed so that you vaporize at sun-rise. [1] http://www.tss-india.com/crematorium http://www.tss-india.com/crematorium [2] http://www.solarthermalworld.org/content/india-first-solar-crematorium-trial-phase http://www.solarthermalworld.org/content/india-first-solar-c... [3] PDF feasibility study: http://rsisinternational.org/Issue4/01-09.pdf http://rsisinternational.org/Issue4/01-09.pdf
- sandworm101 11y ago
  I"ve seen some of that "cremation" by the Ganges river. They were not spreading the ashes on the river so much as dumping rather large blocks of cooked flesh. Ash shouldn't make a splashing noise. The practice needs to be modernized. "Last week more than 80 bodies – mostly decomposed skeletons and half-burned corpses – surfaced in the river in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh after a drop in water levels. " http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/19/hindu-bodies-ganges-india-pollution-narendra-modi http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/19/hindu-bodies-ga...
- noonespecial 11y ago
  That's such a neat idea. I'm imagining a Stonehenge like ring of mirror towers with a central platform in the middle at the focus. What an awesome ceremony it would be. "From stardust we all came to the star we return our loved one..."
zem 11y ago
it's almost certainly better than embalming, and the energy cremation uses is in readier supply than the land traditional burial uses, so i'd guess it's a net win over most methods. "green burial" would be better, but it's not common.

by jjoe 11y ago

I understand that the choice/decision to cremate the self is personal. But I think it stops where the personal starts affecting us all. Is cremation that negligible of an issue for the environment?

gambiting 11y ago

Burying in a coffin requires wood and precious land space. What else do you propose? Burial at sea? A boat that would take your body there would also burn oil. I mean, there's a million more wasteful things that you can complain about, other than how we dispose of our bodies after death.

nsxwolf 11y ago
Why not just liquify bodies with chemicals and then flush them down the drain?
- outworlder 11y ago
  Down the drain? As in, the city's waste treatment plant? I for one don't want to drink liquefied brains.
  - smileysteve 11y ago
    ... Where do you think fish biodegrade to? Eventually bodies make it to the ground, which then eventually make it to the air...
    - kweinber 11y ago
      "Where do you think fish biodegrade to?" Soylent 1.5, that was just before they switched to algal oil. I wonder what Soylent 3.0 will be made of?
  - PhasmaFelis 11y ago
    Is that worse than drinking liquefied shit? Because that's also going into the waste treatment plant, and in far larger quantities than even large-scale corpse disposal would produce. Every molecule of H20 you've every drunk has been part of a disgusting biological process at some point. But homeopathy isn't real; the water doesn't remember.
    - nokcha 11y ago
      >Is that worse than drinking liquefied shit? Yes, or more precisely, wastewater treatment plants can neutralize most fecal-borne pathogens, but they are unable to neutralize prions, the infectious agent behind transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE). In fact, in some cases, prions even remained infectious after incineration at 600°C [1]. [1] Brown, Paul, et al. "New studies on the heat resistance of hamster-adapted scrapie agent: threshold survival after ashing at 600°C suggests an inorganic template of replication." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97.7 (2000): 3418-3421. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Edward_Rau/publication/12598598_New_studies_on_the_heat_resistance_of_hamster-adapted_scrapie_agent_Threshold_survival_after_ashing_at_600C_suggests_an_inorganic_template_of_replication/links/54597bf50cf2cf516483d241.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Edward_Rau/publication/...
- sithadmin 11y ago
  Why not liquify them and turn them into biofuel? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization
- vacri 11y ago
  "chemicals" also take energy to create, and you still have to deal with the environmental effects of the waste products from the process.
  - nsxwolf 11y ago
    How about composting?
- WalterBright 11y ago
  Why has nobody mentioned making soylent green yet? :)
  - zanny 11y ago
    Of course the creator of D wants to eat liquefied dead people. Hey, you're way smarter than me, so if you are on board with the idea I'll give it a go! Lets eat our dead! xD
Spooky23 11y ago
It's environmental paralysis. Perhaps we'd consume less energy rotting in place. If you died in the office, you'd get bonus karma for shutting the office down, reducing carbon emissions from commuting.

cpwright 11y ago

Compared to the energy you will use throughout your life, the energy used for a cremation is trivial (about a 5,000 mile drive). The alternative (burial) impacts the environment considerably as well. There is plenty of land devoted to cemeteries. Trees or metal are used (once) for the casket. In many places, you also need a concrete vault, which would add to the impact.

jjoe 11y ago
But the resulting ash isn't biodegradable. Cemetery land can be reused after full decomposition and after enough time has passed.
- gknoy 11y ago
  Why are the ashes from cremation not biodegradeable?
- gambiting 11y ago
  How is it not biodegradable? It's mostly carbon and calcium, right? In which case it's as natural as it can be - saying it's not biodegradable is like saying that rocks are not biodegradable. You could probably use it as a fertilizer(not that you would want to, respect towards the deceased and all that) and it would be absolutely fine. Cemetery land is essentially locked for hundreds of years, probably more since no one wants to be turning 500-year old graves into farmland.
  - cptskippy 11y ago
    > You could probably use it as a fertilizer(not that you would want to, respect towards the deceased and all that) That's exactly what I'd want my ashes used for.
    - sandworm101 11y ago
      That's what happens to pet ashes in my area. There is a farm outside of town that accepts the ash and ploughs it into fields.

arjie 11y ago

If you don't want to be cremated or buried, there are these "natural death"[0] places that will perform woodland burials for you. It's pretty cool. You are buried out on a meadow somewhere in a biodegradable coffin without being embalmed and with a tree over you. Not advocating banning cremations or anything. Just found that cool. 0: http://www.naturaldeath.org.uk/ http://www.naturaldeath.org.uk/

uremog 11y ago
I heard in a TED talk that you can now buy a "mushroom suit" that acts as a substrate and is laced with nutrient so that you grow mushrooms when buried.
sandworm101 11y ago
This isn't legal in many jurisdictions. When done correctly I'm sure it is perfectly safe and dignified. But we have rules about the disposal of bodies for a reason. Not everyone appreciates people turning meadows into their personal burial grounds. There are some serious questions being asked about natural burials and pharmaceuticals. Dead bodies these days are cocktails of drugs, synthetic body parts (knee/hip replacements) even radionuclides. Whether the mushroom suit can deal with all of that properly remains an open question.
- arjie 11y ago
  Well, obviously one can't go around burying bodies willy-nilly. I do not believe that needs stating.
- smallreader 11y ago
  It's legal in virtually all jurisdictions, provided the proper steps are followed to organize as a cemetery, comply with laws, coordinate with funeral directors etc. Basic principles of no embalming, no vault, simple coffin or shroud, are more or less identical to Jewish and Muslim practices, practiced in every state. Moreover there are no ecological concerns versus conventional burial, except that conventional burial typically involves sticking a lot of concrete, steel, and treated wood in the ground. Whereas natural burial uses fewer resources and conserves land in a natural state. Embalming does nothing regarding drugs or radionucleotides in the body. It simply adds embalming fluid consisting mostly of formaldehyde that decomposes after burial. Removing implants may or may not be done for both conventional and "natural" burial, no difference; it's always done for cremation since incineration is involved. The "mushroom suit" innovation is not a common green burial practice at this time.

theophrastus 11y ago

India, who's Hindu population require cremation as a death rite, and really needs to worry about deforestation, has been investigating direct focused solar cremations, ("Huge two parabolas of 32 m2 concentrate solar radiation"[1]). I always thought that might be an interesting way to do it, particularly if one's body could be placed so that you vaporize at sun-rise. [1] http://www.tss-india.com/crematorium http://www.tss-india.com/crematorium [2] http://www.solarthermalworld.org/content/india-first-solar-crematorium-trial-phase http://www.solarthermalworld.org/content/india-first-solar-c... [3] PDF feasibility study: http://rsisinternational.org/Issue4/01-09.pdf http://rsisinternational.org/Issue4/01-09.pdf

sandworm101 11y ago
I"ve seen some of that "cremation" by the Ganges river. They were not spreading the ashes on the river so much as dumping rather large blocks of cooked flesh. Ash shouldn't make a splashing noise. The practice needs to be modernized. "Last week more than 80 bodies – mostly decomposed skeletons and half-burned corpses – surfaced in the river in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh after a drop in water levels. " http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/19/hindu-bodies-ganges-india-pollution-narendra-modi http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/19/hindu-bodies-ga...
noonespecial 11y ago
That's such a neat idea. I'm imagining a Stonehenge like ring of mirror towers with a central platform in the middle at the focus. What an awesome ceremony it would be. "From stardust we all came to the star we return our loved one..."

zem 11y ago

it's almost certainly better than embalming, and the energy cremation uses is in readier supply than the land traditional burial uses, so i'd guess it's a net win over most methods. "green burial" would be better, but it's not common.