4 ms·

How did this become illegal in the first place? If a person wants to be buried somewhere and the land owner allows them to be buried there, what justification d

by bhaney 2y ago

How did this become illegal in the first place? If a person wants to be buried somewhere and the land owner allows them to be buried there, what justification does the government have for being involved at all? Was there some incident or health concern that caused the Australian government to bother legislating about this?

defrost 2y ago
Varies by country, eg the US (various states), Canada, the UK, Australia and everywhere else will differ. This isn't something I know much about, it seems to have only became legislated in Western Australia in the mid 80s https://www.dlgsc.wa.gov.au/local-government/community/cemeteries-and-burials https://www.dlgsc.wa.gov.au/local-government/community/cemet... and more generally in Australia at ?? https://australian.museum/about/history/exhibitions/death-the-last-taboo/burial-cremation-or-donation https://australian.museum/about/history/exhibitions/death-th... I suspect the justification is keeping track of whole corpses so that in the event of an odd corpse turning up it can be quickly determined whether this a mysterious and possibly criminal death or just an off the usual track recorded death. Private land burials on farms and family properties generally aren't an issue permission wise, local councils can be advised and would almost always agree unless there's some bizzarro small town politics thing going way back or something. There's a few things at play here - decomposing a body in a manner that's useful to the land much as bllod and bone fertilisers are, - tracking identifiable body parts (like entire skulls, leg bones) so as to ease future investigations, - biologically 'safe' disposal, ensuring rotting meat sacks aren't growing pathogens and leaking into water supplies. There's overlap here with other 'common ground' legislation concerning pig, cattle, sheep, cracass and waste disposal, etc.

by bhaney 2y ago

defrost 2y ago

Varies by country, eg the US (various states), Canada, the UK, Australia and everywhere else will differ. This isn't something I know much about, it seems to have only became legislated in Western Australia in the mid 80s https://www.dlgsc.wa.gov.au/local-government/community/cemeteries-and-burials https://www.dlgsc.wa.gov.au/local-government/community/cemet... and more generally in Australia at ?? https://australian.museum/about/history/exhibitions/death-the-last-taboo/burial-cremation-or-donation https://australian.museum/about/history/exhibitions/death-th... I suspect the justification is keeping track of whole corpses so that in the event of an odd corpse turning up it can be quickly determined whether this a mysterious and possibly criminal death or just an off the usual track recorded death. Private land burials on farms and family properties generally aren't an issue permission wise, local councils can be advised and would almost always agree unless there's some bizzarro small town politics thing going way back or something. There's a few things at play here - decomposing a body in a manner that's useful to the land much as bllod and bone fertilisers are, - tracking identifiable body parts (like entire skulls, leg bones) so as to ease future investigations, - biologically 'safe' disposal, ensuring rotting meat sacks aren't growing pathogens and leaking into water supplies. There's overlap here with other 'common ground' legislation concerning pig, cattle, sheep, cracass and waste disposal, etc.