4 ms·

While composting has a lot of benefits, I would be very sad to attend a friend's burial if they were to be composted. Feels like a disrespectful way to let some

While composting has a lot of benefits, I would be very sad to attend a friend's burial if they were to be composted. Feels like a disrespectful way to let someone go. I'm also concerned about disease transmission. Cows' diseases may not necessarily affect us but humans' certainly will. The need to disinfect kinda defeats the purpose (pollution with chemicals) Hope about we just compost other things and let human bodies be

spinach 7y ago
I don't think it's particularly disrespectful, isn't all that's needed a change of perspective? What makes it disrespectful, precisely? The common method of embalming in North America seems more disrespectful - pumping a body full of chemicals that weren't there in the first place and helping to pollute the earth.
- mcv 7y ago
  Composting seems like a mixture between cremation and natural burial. At the funeral ceremony, the deceased disappears into a machine, as with cremation, but eventually the body will feed the soil, like with natural burial. I think it's mostly a slower, cleaner version of cremation, though.
- SmileyRedBall 7y ago
  @spinach: “I don't think it's particularly disrespectful, isn't all that's needed a change of perspective? What makes it disrespectful, precisely?” Your processor's all fucked up, your information tray is jammed. Personally, I'd feel a little queasy eating strawberries from my own garden fertilized with my dear ole gran. To reduce the cadaver into compost would totally disrespect such shared memories as were had with their loved one. I guess your response here is yet another depiction of the dehumanizing effects of the coming transhuman post-human epoch. Where, as I read somewhere recently, one can attend ones own funeral as a robot. Oh brave new world that has such people in it.
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    And why does this anger you so? Nobody is forcing you to compost anyone else's body, right? You have the right to be burned or buried in a variety of sanitary ways. Composting is currently not allowed, yet, in many jurisdictions. Do you find mummies undignified? Stalin's preserved body left for display? "Heaven" burials Zoroastrianism practices?
  - guggle 7y ago
    It's all cultural though. Other people with other culture would find disrespectful that you don't dig up your dead once a year to wash them up and give them new clothes.
  - 481092 7y ago
    Those strawberries were your aunt before she was born. Did you know strawberries and other foods go into producing humans? And when we die we, if given a natural death, we can go into producing foods again? It's always been that way. If you want to make the argument that @spinach's view is poisoned by futurism, you ought to take a look at yours which I'd argue is poisoned by modernity. You are the earth, you are of this earth and you'll go back into this earth eventually unless you opt for some expensive astro-death where you'll eventually land into some other material planet into that dirt. And shared memories are immaterial, detached from that person once they die. That's the beauty of those memories, that's what makes them special, the fleeting moments in the nows and thens knowing none of this will last forever. I get that it may make you nauseous as it does me to some extent but OP's view is far from "fucked up".
    - bregma 7y ago
      It's the circle of life. Dang you Mufasa.
    - SmileyRedBall 7y ago
      @481092: “Those strawberries were your aunt before she was born.” But they never read me stories and fed me chicken soup when I was ill-in-bed aged ten! “shared memories are immaterial, detached from that person once they die” You just don't get it do you, I've got old photos of my deceased relatives, they're just made of paper but I wouldn't want to compost them either.
mgbmtl 7y ago
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.
pygy_ 7y ago
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...
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
What if your friend sees no value in their body after they're done with it and wants to be composted? Perhaps they found it the least impactful way to go. Wouldn't respecting their wishes seem more important?
- ChrisRR 7y ago
  Or if they do see value in their body as returning it to the earth and continuing the circle of life.
- SmileyRedBall 7y ago
  @NeedMoreTea: “What if your friend sees no value in their body after they're done with it” .. Yea, why not just dip the corpse in silicone epoxy, mount it on a plinth and put it on display. Oh wait, someone else has already thought of that. https://bodyworlds.com/city/london/ https://bodyworlds.com/city/london/ “The first Matrix I designed was .. [a] monumental failure .. Thus, I redesigned it based on your history to more accurately reflect the varying grotesqueries of your nature.”
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    That got a laugh. Once I'm dead, I'm done with it. I have no remnant of silly medieval ideas like the saintly sanctity of a corpse or any need of special religious consideration or ceremony. The most fitting use to my mind is, as ChrisRR suggests, returning to the natural cycle of the earth adding as little pollution as possible. Composting, repurposed as dog food, feed worms, fish or even birds via sky burial, I don't much care. Epoxy filled as a display piece is rather high impact for my taste, I'd prefer to feed the soil with a forest burial thanks. If the "artist" were to offer my descendents a large enough royalty for my use as inside out epoxied exhibit, along with appropriate carbon offset I would gladly reconsider... :)
heavenlyblue 7y ago
>> Feels like a disrespectful way to let someone go. What is a respectful way to let someone go?
ChrisRR 7y ago
I don't find it disrespectful if that's what the person wanted. I don't see why it's any worse than burying them and letting the worms eat them, or burning them, crushing them into dust and scattering that dust into the sea.
naravara 7y ago
Some cultures, like Tibetans and Zoroastrians, practice “sky burial” where they literally leave the bodies out for carrion, sometimes even cutting it to pieces to make it easier for the vultures to get at. So our ideas about what’s respectful are based on the expectations that are culturally coded into us. When new systems arise, we’ll come up with new ways to imbue then with gravity and respect.
myvoiceismypass 7y ago
If said friend wanted to be composted after they expire, I don’t see anything disrespectful about it. I don’t particularly enjoying thinking of my own demise, but I do know I would rather my death be as least impactful on the environment as possible, and I’d hope that friends & family will at least smile knowing that was my choice.
cftorres 7y ago
Feeling attached to that kind of judgements is part of culture. Luckily culture changes trough time, this news opens the possibility that in some years this alternative could be as respectful as sustainable.
- nashashmi 7y ago
  Cultures don't change. New cultures form. Old cultures die. The judgement is attached to the significance of the person. The right casket, right dress, right ceremony. But ritual comes from religion. A new religion around sustainable life will adopt this method. The others who adopt will be the fringe individuals.
  - cftorres 7y ago
    I'm talking about culture in its general concept as the "cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings..." I say it taking in account that changes in human behavior are not an abrupt jump from white to black. http://people.tamu.edu/~i-choudhury/culture.html http://people.tamu.edu/~i-choudhury/culture.html
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

spinach 7y ago

I don't think it's particularly disrespectful, isn't all that's needed a change of perspective? What makes it disrespectful, precisely? The common method of embalming in North America seems more disrespectful - pumping a body full of chemicals that weren't there in the first place and helping to pollute the earth.

mcv 7y ago
Composting seems like a mixture between cremation and natural burial. At the funeral ceremony, the deceased disappears into a machine, as with cremation, but eventually the body will feed the soil, like with natural burial. I think it's mostly a slower, cleaner version of cremation, though.
SmileyRedBall 7y ago
@spinach: “I don't think it's particularly disrespectful, isn't all that's needed a change of perspective? What makes it disrespectful, precisely?” Your processor's all fucked up, your information tray is jammed. Personally, I'd feel a little queasy eating strawberries from my own garden fertilized with my dear ole gran. To reduce the cadaver into compost would totally disrespect such shared memories as were had with their loved one. I guess your response here is yet another depiction of the dehumanizing effects of the coming transhuman post-human epoch. Where, as I read somewhere recently, one can attend ones own funeral as a robot. Oh brave new world that has such people in it.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  And why does this anger you so? Nobody is forcing you to compost anyone else's body, right? You have the right to be burned or buried in a variety of sanitary ways. Composting is currently not allowed, yet, in many jurisdictions. Do you find mummies undignified? Stalin's preserved body left for display? "Heaven" burials Zoroastrianism practices?
- guggle 7y ago
  It's all cultural though. Other people with other culture would find disrespectful that you don't dig up your dead once a year to wash them up and give them new clothes.
- 481092 7y ago
  Those strawberries were your aunt before she was born. Did you know strawberries and other foods go into producing humans? And when we die we, if given a natural death, we can go into producing foods again? It's always been that way. If you want to make the argument that @spinach's view is poisoned by futurism, you ought to take a look at yours which I'd argue is poisoned by modernity. You are the earth, you are of this earth and you'll go back into this earth eventually unless you opt for some expensive astro-death where you'll eventually land into some other material planet into that dirt. And shared memories are immaterial, detached from that person once they die. That's the beauty of those memories, that's what makes them special, the fleeting moments in the nows and thens knowing none of this will last forever. I get that it may make you nauseous as it does me to some extent but OP's view is far from "fucked up".
  - bregma 7y ago
    It's the circle of life. Dang you Mufasa.
  - SmileyRedBall 7y ago
    @481092: “Those strawberries were your aunt before she was born.” But they never read me stories and fed me chicken soup when I was ill-in-bed aged ten! “shared memories are immaterial, detached from that person once they die” You just don't get it do you, I've got old photos of my deceased relatives, they're just made of paper but I wouldn't want to compost them either.

mgbmtl 7y ago

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.

pygy_ 7y ago

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...

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

What if your friend sees no value in their body after they're done with it and wants to be composted? Perhaps they found it the least impactful way to go. Wouldn't respecting their wishes seem more important?

ChrisRR 7y ago
Or if they do see value in their body as returning it to the earth and continuing the circle of life.
SmileyRedBall 7y ago
@NeedMoreTea: “What if your friend sees no value in their body after they're done with it” .. Yea, why not just dip the corpse in silicone epoxy, mount it on a plinth and put it on display. Oh wait, someone else has already thought of that. https://bodyworlds.com/city/london/ https://bodyworlds.com/city/london/ “The first Matrix I designed was .. [a] monumental failure .. Thus, I redesigned it based on your history to more accurately reflect the varying grotesqueries of your nature.”
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  That got a laugh. Once I'm dead, I'm done with it. I have no remnant of silly medieval ideas like the saintly sanctity of a corpse or any need of special religious consideration or ceremony. The most fitting use to my mind is, as ChrisRR suggests, returning to the natural cycle of the earth adding as little pollution as possible. Composting, repurposed as dog food, feed worms, fish or even birds via sky burial, I don't much care. Epoxy filled as a display piece is rather high impact for my taste, I'd prefer to feed the soil with a forest burial thanks. If the "artist" were to offer my descendents a large enough royalty for my use as inside out epoxied exhibit, along with appropriate carbon offset I would gladly reconsider... :)

heavenlyblue 7y ago

>> Feels like a disrespectful way to let someone go. What is a respectful way to let someone go?

ChrisRR 7y ago

I don't find it disrespectful if that's what the person wanted. I don't see why it's any worse than burying them and letting the worms eat them, or burning them, crushing them into dust and scattering that dust into the sea.

naravara 7y ago

Some cultures, like Tibetans and Zoroastrians, practice “sky burial” where they literally leave the bodies out for carrion, sometimes even cutting it to pieces to make it easier for the vultures to get at. So our ideas about what’s respectful are based on the expectations that are culturally coded into us. When new systems arise, we’ll come up with new ways to imbue then with gravity and respect.

myvoiceismypass 7y ago

If said friend wanted to be composted after they expire, I don’t see anything disrespectful about it. I don’t particularly enjoying thinking of my own demise, but I do know I would rather my death be as least impactful on the environment as possible, and I’d hope that friends & family will at least smile knowing that was my choice.

cftorres 7y ago

Feeling attached to that kind of judgements is part of culture. Luckily culture changes trough time, this news opens the possibility that in some years this alternative could be as respectful as sustainable.

nashashmi 7y ago
Cultures don't change. New cultures form. Old cultures die. The judgement is attached to the significance of the person. The right casket, right dress, right ceremony. But ritual comes from religion. A new religion around sustainable life will adopt this method. The others who adopt will be the fringe individuals.
- cftorres 7y ago
  I'm talking about culture in its general concept as the "cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings..." I say it taking in account that changes in human behavior are not an abrupt jump from white to black. http://people.tamu.edu/~i-choudhury/culture.html http://people.tamu.edu/~i-choudhury/culture.html

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]