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Washington state lawmakers approve human corpse composting
- leereeves 7y agoI'd probably choose this method of entering eternity if it was available where I live, but still I wonder: is this safe? Edit: Ok, I better clarify, I was thinking of the risk of infectious diseases and other toxins to the people still alive.
- grepthisab 7y agoSeems like you have little to lose. You're not going to die again, after all.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- GiorgioG 7y agoAs long as you're completely dead, it's definitely safe for you =) For everything else that lives and dies on this planet, it's sort of the natural order of things.
- rplst8 7y agoYeah, I feel like a lot of religious practices (burial being one of them) originated from things that were a detriment to society or seen as "unclean" and that caused infection, diseases, or maybe just a bad stench. I wonder if long ago our ancestors learned a lesson about this that they codified in religion, but forgot the "why" part and now we are just going to repeat history.
- michaelcampbell 7y ago> I wonder if long ago our ancestors learned a lesson about this that they codified in religion, but forgot the "why" part and now we are just going to repeat history. That, combined with the desire but not the means to explain things they didn't understand, is religion in a nutshell.
- torpfactory 7y agoOur ancestors didn't have microbiology. As long as we pay attention to the science, we won't be repeating history.
- sremani 7y agoThe debate is not whether we are more knowledgeable than our ancestors, the debate is are we any wiser*.
- ncallaway 7y agoOkay, but the same applies to eating pork. As long as we actually understand the underlying reasons why these practices were forbidden, and have addressed them, then it's okay to eat pork. These issues have been studied, and composting is a pretty safe form of disposal as long as it's done properly.
- Fomite 7y agoIt's very tempting to tell "just so" stories like this, but from the perspective of an infectious disease epidemiologist, cultural and religious practices, including burials, aren't consistently "good" from a disease standpoint. It's about 50/50 whether it helps or hurts.
- dbingham 7y agoAerobic composting done right largely sterilizes the compost pile. It kills most harmful bacteria (and in the case of garden compost, weed seeds) because the pile heats to a really high temperature (140F+).
- shawnz 7y agoWhat about prions? Would they be eliminated by this method?
- giarc 7y agoLikely not, however as I posted elsewhere in this thread, those with confirmed or suspected CJD would fall under other public health laws regarding handling of the deceased.
- txru 7y agoPrions aren't eliminated by any of our burial methods anyway. I think the best thing you can hope for is preventing animals from eating contaminated tissue. That wouldn't be an issue with any legal method of human remains disposal.
- somebodythere 7y agoAren't prions eliminated by cremation?
- txru 7y agoAh yeah you're right. I knew they couldn't be destroyed by an autoclave, and I misunderstood what exactly those do. They're only pressure and heat above boiling (120*C).
- Fomite 7y agoNote that cremation produces its own human-health, especially in the form of mercury output from vaporized dental amalgams.
- temp99990 7y agoThis is interesting though I remember seeing a ted talk on covering the corpse in fungi to detoxify the corpse while composting because human bodies are generally highly toxic...
- i_am_nomad 7y agoI’m skeptical of this claim, that human bodies are “highly toxic.” What does that mean, exactly - what toxins are we talking about?
- emersonrsantos 7y agoGastric acid, just to name one.
- jniedrauer 7y agoIt's certainly true of embalmed bodies. Hopefully we wouldn't be composting those though.
- cobbzilla 7y agoImagine you try the zombie thing and eat a lot of dead flesh. You would get really sick and maybe die. I don't know the chemical names offhand, but suffice to say the decomposition process has plenty of nasty byproducts, not to mention whatever might have been in the intestinal tract (eating feces == bad).
- vanilla_nut 7y agoIn all fairness, zombies don't generally eat heavily decomposed bodies. They tend to eat recently living or even currently living flesh most of the time, hence their tendency to kill people for their flesh. On a slightly more serious note... there are plenty of carrion eating animals. Many of which are capable of eating humans. I'm sure it's not that toxic.
- cobbzilla 7y ago
- elektor 7y agoAlkaline hydrolysis is another preferable option to ground burial. Much more environmentally friendly and allows large plots of land to be used for the living.
- jxcl 7y agoIf I should die before I wake, All my bone and sinew take Put me in the compost pile To decompose me for a while. Worms, water, sun will have their way, Returning me to common clay All that I am will feed the trees And little fishes in the seas. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOJRiCHhciY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOJRiCHhciY
- egberts 7y agoA nice tribute to Earth Day for the cofounder had experimented with human corpse composting with his murdered girlfriend.
- mogadsheu 7y agoWhile I understand the merit of the energy efficiency implications mentioned in the article, I actually disagree with this method on grounds of the potential spread/development of infectious disease. The vast majority of cultures have rites for taking care of the dead in a tidy manner. This is partly out of respect and partly for cleanliness purposes. Corpses that aren’t embalmed or cremated are hotbeds for disease. Having them naturally degrade seems like a great way for new human-specific evolutions in disease to grow and spread.
- lostapathy 7y agoYou're not up to date on the rules. Per the FTC, embalming is not required for burial in any state. A lot of cemeteries require it, but Google "green burial" for more info on places that don't. https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0300-ftc-funeral-rule https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0300-ftc-funeral-rule
- giarc 7y ago>Corpses that aren’t embalmed or cremated are hotbeds for disease. Not really. Corpses don't really gain the ability to transmit diseases if the disease wasn't already there. For those with infectious diseases that are of concern for human to human transmission, many locations have laws already in place. In Alberta, my province, we refer to these as Schedule 1 and Schedule 2 diseases and have public health law regarding handling of the deceased that fall into these categories [1]. 1 - http://www.qp.alberta.ca/documents/Regs/2008_135.pdf http://www.qp.alberta.ca/documents/Regs/2008_135.pdf
- jetrink 7y agoThey aren't just tossing the bodies on a compost pile. It's a very specific process that involves a lot of oxygen and high temperatures (60C-70C). Pathogens do not survive if it's done properly.
- bilbo0s 7y ago>if it's done properly... And this is the reason that composting never took hold in antiquity. For the ancients, who may not have had as much scientific knowledge, burial and cremation could be done improperly, and still provide a sanitary means of disposal of the deceased. You try to compost the deceased in an ancient society lacking the proper techniques, facilities, and medical care, and I'd imagine you'd just be bringing a whole world of problems down on your village or town.
- darkpuma 7y agoWill they also allow sky burial? Edit: I was being serious. I would choose a sky burial if given the option. Feeding scavenger birds is a natural and aesthetically satisfying method of corpse disposal.
- wtdata 7y ago"Soylent green is people!"
- bronlund 7y agoOf course. If you are going to kill 80% of the population it would be a shame making them all go to waste :P
- basementcat 7y agoIn Washington, Soylent people are green!
- djsumdog 7y agoI thought "Green Burials" have been allow in many states for years. It typically involves minimal embalming, with some sites not even having tombstones or markers, instead getting state approval to bury the bodies in nature restoration sites/parks. I guess that's more passive though, because you're letting a human decompose like any animal, versus active industrial composting like we do we paper towels and food waste.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- stephencoyner 7y agoThis is a huge step in the right direction. Despite anyone's opinions on death and burial traditions, the reality is that the most common practices are not eco friendly. In the U.S. each year we bury 20m ft of hardwood, 1.6m tons of concrete and 4.3m gallons of embalming fluid. [1] An average cremation takes 28 gallons of fuel. [1] Also, just my own opinion based on observation, why do cemeteries get all the best real estate?? Dead people can't enjoy that view. [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-your-death-affects-cl_b_6.. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-your-death-affects-cl_b_6....
- komali2 7y agoHalf of Colma seems to be graveyards, but I bet they could fill it to the brim with 4 story housing units and not put a dent on bay area demand... always boggled my mind.
- yellowapple 7y agoIt's more than half, actually (IIRC upwards of 70%). Colma was specifically incorporated as a necropolis, and the dead outnumber the living by something like 1000-to-1. Sure, maybe a bunch of cemetaries ain't the most efficient use of space, but it's certainly a really cool use of space. I live in close proximity to it, and appreciate it as part of the not-quite-green-belt between Daly City and South San Francisco.
- thanatos_dem 7y agoYup, that’s right. For those that like podcasts there’s a 99% Invisible episode about it - https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-modern-necropolis/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-modern-necropolis... And for those that like videos, that link includes a Tom Scott YouTube video as well.
- hinkley 7y agoDo you want poltergeists? Because this is how you get poltergeists.
- pcunite 7y agoThis is an ad for recompose.life.
- erikig 7y agoMeh...call me when they approve Sky Burials...
- hirundo 7y agoA character in Footfall (or was it Oath of Fealty?), by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, composted the inconvenient body of someone he had murdered. I've wondered if that was practical and this article says affirmative. But for purposes of hiding a corpse I'd think it would be painfully slow to decompose. The man-eating pigs in Hannibal or Deadwood seem like a better bet, converting it quickly into fertilizer. But then you have to keep pigs. Is it legal to feed a human corpse to pigs? Maybe it should be. It would seem to be eco-friendly.
- kakspuut 7y agoWho's gonna eat that pig afterwards?
- objectivetruth 7y agoI honestly expected your question to garner a half-dozen nerds replying pedantically about how they wouldn't mind eating corpse-eating pigs, and that the human body is just organic matter blah blah blah, and I'm shocked that it didn't :-)
- TheMagicHorsey 7y agoWas this a burning issue to be resolved? I learn new things here every day.
- xwdv 7y agoCemeteries aren’t for the dead, they’re for the living.
- SketchySeaBeast 7y agoI keep telling that to my grandfather, but he won't be tricked into trying out his grave.
- stephencoyner 7y ago> Cemeteries aren’t for the dead, they’re for the living. The living are there 1% of the time. The dead are there 100%. Put the cemetery in a place that isn't prime real estate because of this was my opinion.
- vlunkr 7y agoI think you're being overly dismissive of thousands(?) of years of human tradition. Yeah, we don't act completely rationally when it comes to death, because death is a deeply emotional thing, and we're not robots. People honor the dead by burying them in beautiful places, it's pretty simple.
- camhart 7y agocouldn't agree more
- ken 7y agoThere are plenty of human traditions that don’t use a western-style cemetery.
- tomjakubowski 7y agoThere are thousands of years of history behind the cemetery tradition, part of a culture that's dominant in certain parts of the world. That there are other human cultures which have different practices doesn't make it any easier to change that one.
- yters 7y agoIn general, why treat dead bodies any more specially than any other piece of organic matter? Use them for compost, eat them, make clothing out of the skin, etc. What's the problem? We do it to animals, and humans are just another kind of animal.
- mises 7y agoThere is a great difference between what is rationally true and what an emotional being (i.e. a person) will do. See the trolley problem and many others. For instance, people will stay in a declining stock past the "rational threshold" because they have developed an emotional attachment to it. We view people and animals as different. We have a long tradition of viewing people as different. We have pushed those limits somewhat with organ donation, but generally speaking, we don't break people down for spare parts. Most religions and corresponding cultures view people as made by God and having a small element of the diving. This is the reason people are considered better than animals, and the reason there are different requirements for veterinary vs human medicine. Same reason we eat animals without issue. Maybe you disagree; we are each free to our respective opinions. But most people don't view humans as "just another kind of animal".
- yters 7y agoIf that's the case, then why is it a good thing that humans are being used for compost? Seems inconsistent. Either humans are more sacred than other animals, and should be treated specially, even when dead. Or, if they don't need to be treated specially when dead, then why treat them specially at any other point? I guess this legislation is a way to rationally erode the obsolete emotional reasons for treating the human body as something special.
- mises 7y agoI'm not sure what you're arguing here. I believe humans are sacred and ought to be treated as such, even when dead.
- 7y ago
- danielecook 7y agoFrom a very young age I’ve thought cemeteries were ludicrous. It’s nice to be able to remember a loved one, but after a few hundred years is it still necessary? The fact is after a certain number of generations no one is grieving or remembering or even visiting the cemetery plots. In a nearby graveyard in London the gravestones are so old and space is so tight that they moved them all out of the way to make room for a playground. Who am I to feel so important that I should take up space in perpetuity? After a few generations, document the gravestones and get rid of them and make room for a park you can run around in.
- gtirloni 7y agoIt makes perfect sense but the generations that have to make that choice today (because they don't care about those dead people anymore) don't want to think tha they too will one day not matter anymore. It's a hard sell unless there are stronger reasons (e.g. housing is really really terrible that people will want to "disturb the dead"). Yeah, humans... :-)
- 8bitsrule 7y agoI was amazed when I learned (from the net) that in 1900 San Francisco banned new cemeteries. But they didn't stop there: eviction notices were soon sent out. And from 1902 to 1947, bodies were moved out. Headstones were rounded up and dumped along the shores. Many of the bodies wound up in Colma ... which now has 17 cemeteries, 73% of the city's land. http://www.sfmuseum.net/hist1/index0.html#cemeteries http://www.sfmuseum.net/hist1/index0.html#cemeteries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colma,_California#San_Francisco_cemetery_relocations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colma,_California#San_Francisc...
- stevula 7y agoThey used many of the headstones to pave parts of the walkways Buena Vista Park and some other areas of SF.
- rjf72 7y agoThis may vary by person. For myself, I'm quite disappointed that my geneological tree runs dry just a few generations back. I'd love to see where it, it being me I suppose, began - but it's simply not possible. But today we're creating what may be a record that, at least ideally, people even thousands of years from now will be able to view. Imagine being able to see the thoughts and 'writings' (in a manner of speaking) of your ancestor from thousands of years past - see the lands that they knew as home (or at least what became of them), and ideally even see their final resting spot. Perhaps this does not appeal to you, but I find it extremely intriguing. I mean these people are quite literally a large part of you. I find it interesting to just ponder on such things. It has little to do with grieving or even remembrance. In my case it's mostly curiosity. In a way it's akin to visiting a museum of you. And in the future people will be able to do this. This gets even more interesting once you consider that at some point, perhaps not far from now, there is an extremely high chance that your descendants will reside on another planet. I see no reason to believe that these descendants would have any less curiosity about their heritage. That playground will eventually give way to some apartment complex, road, or place to buy crap and nobody will ever know or care that it was there. But the people of today are what will make up the people of thousands of years from now. And that lingering connection and curiosity of the past is something that I expect will probably remain with our species (and even the species we diverge onto in the future) indefinitely.
- cbm-vic-20 7y agoSo... What happens when they inevitably run out of money and go out of business?
- __tg__ 7y agoIn other news, Americans rediscover the Jewish/Muslim way of burial.
- reallydude 7y agoEither you don't understand the traditions you are trying to reference, or the methodology approved.
- m0zg 7y agoWashington state lawmakers should get their heads out of their behinds and do something about the ballooning homeless population. Buy them bus tickets back to Portland, for example. https://mynorthwest.com/297793/portland-begins-sending-homeless-people-to-other-cities-including-seattle/ https://mynorthwest.com/297793/portland-begins-sending-homel...
- seattle_spring 7y agoMyNorthWest is a right wing hackjob of a publication. That aside, your comment is completely off-topic.
- m0zg 7y agoThe article is by KIRO7 news staff. Is KOMO News also a "right wing hackjob of a publication"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpAi70WWBlw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpAi70WWBlw
- StudentStuff 7y agoSinclair has hijacked KOMO repeatedly to spread corporate lines: https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/07/media/sinclair-broadcasting-promos-media-bashing/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/07/media/sinclair-broadcasting... Frankly, Sinclair owned stations should be required to have common branding if they are going to share the exact same website design, news content and management, anything less is deceiving the public.
- m0zg 7y agoI take it you didn't watch the video. Watch it first, then comment on what's a more pressing issue: composting or thousands of people living under the bridges and shooting up heroin.
- StudentStuff 7y agoGreat jab to derail from how KOMO is literally a talking piece of Sinclair! I live in Seattle and have watched that hackjob of a video, they've fenced the underside of many bridges that homeless used to camp under, most recently the West Seattle and Ballard bridges have been fenced. Your obviously disgruntled, move somewhere else!
- wii_to_low 7y agoever smelled a compositing body? its pretty nasty
- AcerbicZero 7y agoSeattle already has a comical amount of human waste composting on the streets. Might as well make it legal to leave the bodies there too.
- OBLIQUE_PILLAR 7y agosurprised no one has brought up Tibetan sky burial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LG1J9fnB4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LG1J9fnB4s Parsi burials in "Tower of silence" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opSPc44s9_o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opSPc44s9_o
- SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago> surprised no one has brought up Tibetan sky burial I keep telling people that this is what I want (and I'm serious) but sadly it doesn't appear to be practical in my part of the world.
- megamindbrian2 7y agoExcellent! I can be buried under a tree, like I always wanted.
- AtlasLion 7y agoSounds quite similar to Islamic burial tradition.