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09-19-2022 08:48 PM
@colliemom4 wrote:Years ago I saw a special about people who donated their bodies to a place called the Body Farm. I thought I'd heard of everything until I saw that. The bodies there aren't even buried and are studied.
@colliemom4 I've heard a lot about the Body Farm in Tennessee. If I didn't already have plans, that's what I would do. It's for research so they aren't buried.
09-19-2022 09:19 PM
@Cakers3 We are entering the world of Soylent Green.
09-19-2022 09:35 PM
@Cakers3 wrote:
@Isobel Archer wrote:I wonder how long it will take for someone to figure out how to use dead humans to power electricity.
@Isobel Archer Or make Soylent Green.
Wow. Soylent Green was exactly what I thought of too. 👀🍽
09-19-2022 09:35 PM
As with many "new and revolutionary". ideas, lots of things aren't thought through, and the term "unintended consequences" is a convenient excuse. What exactly is a "green" funeral? is that just no embalming?
09-19-2022 09:43 PM
A demonstration "vessel" for the deceased is pictured among the other vessels during a tour of the Return Home funeral home, which specializes in human composting, in Auburn, Wash., on March 14, 2022.
JASON REDMOND/AFP via Getty Images
SFGATE:
The process of composting a cadaver, already legalized in Washington, Colorado and Oregon, involves placing the body in a reusable container, surrounding it with wood chips and aerating it to let microbes and bacteria grow. After about a month, the remains will decompose and be fully transformed into soil. Companies such as Recompose in Washington offer the service at a natural organic reduction facility.
Unlike cremation, the process avoids the burning of fossil fuels and emission of carbon monoxide. National Geographic estimates that cremations in the U.S. alone emit about 360,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year.
During the early depths of the coronavirus pandemic, when funeral homes were inundated, Los Angeles County suspended regulations on cremation emissions.
The author of the bill, member Cristina Garcia, says the threat of climate change motivated the new law.
“AB 351 will provide an additional option for California residents that is more environmentally-friendly and gives them another choice for burial,” said Garcia in a statement. “With climate change and sea-level rise as very real threats to our environment, this is an alternative method of final disposition that won’t contribute emissions into our atmosphere.”
Garcia added that she herself may choose the method when she passes away. "I look forward to continuing my legacy to fight for clean air by using my reduced remains to plant a tree," she wrote.
The idea of composting human remains has raised some ethical questions.
Colorado's version of the law dictates that the soil of multiple people cannot be combined without consent, the soil cannot be sold and it cannot be used to grow food for human consumption.
The California bill bans the combining of multiple peoples' remains, unless they are family, but unlike Colorado, California is not explicitly banning the sale of the soil or its use growing food for human consumption.
The process has met opposition in California from the Catholic Church, which say the process "reduces the human body to simply a disposable commodity."
"NOR (natural organic reduction) uses essentially the same process as a home gardening composting system," the executive director of the California Catholic Conference said in a statement shared with SFGATE. She added that the process was developed for livestock, not humans.
"These methods of disposal were used to lessen the possibility of disease being transmitted by the dead carcass," she said. "Using these same methods for the 'transformation' of human remains can create an unfortunate spiritual, emotional and psychological distancing from the deceased."
09-19-2022 10:05 PM - edited 09-19-2022 10:06 PM
Not an issue for me living in AZ and where I'll probably be 'til the bitter end. I've always wanted to be cremated anyway & decided that when I was a child. Even told my parents that if I should die young not to bury me. That Hearse Song (do not laugh when the hearse goes by ... worms and "stuff" just too yucky) creeped me out at a very young and impressioable age.
09-19-2022 10:08 PM
A burial at sea has it's appeal, certainly better than being composted.
09-19-2022 10:28 PM
@proudlyfromNJ wrote:
@colliemom4 wrote:Years ago I saw a special about people who donated their bodies to a place called the Body Farm. I thought I'd heard of everything until I saw that. The bodies there aren't even buried and are studied.
@colliemom4 I've heard a lot about the Body Farm in Tennessee. If I didn't already have plans, that's what I would do. It's for research so they aren't buried.
My understanding is that this is not a last minute option. You have to get all the paperwork completed and approved ahead of time.
09-19-2022 10:56 PM
09-19-2022 11:00 PM
i must be strange because i dont find this THAT bizarre to be honest. its no more bizarre than any other method of burial or cremation.
some of my family believes in burial within 24 hours..... and you are washed with soap and water and then wrapped in a white sheet.....no clothing. you came into the world naked, you leave the world naked. no caskets, unless they are buried here in the US.
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