1) Liquefaction
2) Freeze-drying, followed by pulverization. followed by composting

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14114555

Pretty interesting... didn't know of these. Must catch up on the advances in human body disposal technologies!

I always wanted to be buried at my time of death, but now I think I will go with the freeze-drying. Hopefully I will die in a country where that is taking place by then. Cremation I have always seen it as straight-up brutal and insulting. Liquefaction, I don't know, I don't like this (bolded) about it:

Quote :

"The system works by submerging the body in a solution of water and potassium hydroxide which is pressurised to 10 atmospheres and heated to 180C for between two-and-a-half and three hours. Body tissue is dissolved and the liquid poured into the municipal water system. Mr Sullivan, a biochemist by training, says tests have proven the effluent is sterile and contains no DNA, and poses no environmental risk."

Perhaps I am OK with the freeze-drying because it eventually leads to burial and slowly becoming part of the earth.

P.S. Another reason cremation is bad: "Mercury from amalgam vaporised in crematoria is blamed for up to 16% of UK airborne mercury emissions"

(aside from the greenhouse emissions, of course)


[Edited on September 10, 2011 at 9:30 AM. Reason : ]

9/10/2011 9:27:30 AM

I want to be shot into space

9/10/2011 9:34:30 AM

Quote :

"Body tissue is dissolved and the liquid poured into the municipal water system."

I can be flushed down the toilet and join all my dead fish!

9/10/2011 10:13:38 AM

Quote :

" Cremation I have always seen it as straight-up brutal and insulting"

Seriously? Cremation is brutal but your body being pulverized is ok? Also, if you're flushed into the water system or become ashes, do you not still "slowly become part of the earth?"

Personally, I find burial to be rather absurd and want to be cremated and have my ashes spread. I really don't want to be left to rot in a box or flushed down the toilet. If you really want to become part of the earth, it seems like burial is the last thing you'd want.


[Edited on September 10, 2011 at 10:28 AM. Reason : .]

9/10/2011 10:15:49 AM

Seriously? Cremation is brutal but your body being pulverized is ok?

9/10/2011 10:27:43 AM

Embalming has always seemed violating to me. If I could just be put in a hole in the ground sans embalming and casket I'd be happy with that, but since I can't I'd rather be cremated.

9/10/2011 10:43:55 AM

^I agree. Embalming and burial in a vault is pretty wasteful. There's a limited amount of land. Do we really need to be using it for an ever-growing cadre of corpses? Additionally, when there is significant flooding, this can happen:

Quote :

"Princeville, a town of 2,100 residents, was founded on the banks of the Tar River by former slaves after the Civil War. It was also one of the worst flooded towns during Hurricane Floyd. A protective levee broke in seven places, allowing the water rush into town where it rose to 30 feet in some locations. In the local cemetery, sealed caskets floated out of their graves and drifted all over town. Of the 224 recovered caskets, only 174 were identified."

9/10/2011 12:14:45 PM

^^

Natural burial actually is something you can do. They dig a hole, toss you in in a shroud or a simple wooden box and cover it up.

9/11/2011 10:51:32 AM

yep, several years ago we buried a cousin of mine like that, as per his wishes.

9/11/2011 11:03:27 AM

I thought that was illegal because of groundwater contamination or some such. I'll have to look into it then. It hasn't really been a high priority because I hope it won't be relevant for quite a while.

9/11/2011 11:12:18 AM

I've always imagined this:

Having my corpse converted in to some type compost or fertile soil. Then using that soil to grow a bonsai tree.

Then having friends and family take care of the tree for 100s of years.

9/11/2011 11:17:12 AM

I think I want to be cremated. I have never liked wakes or open casket funerals because it's just so... I don't even know how to describe it. The person always looks likes a wax statue.. That's not how I want to be remembered as someone's last sight of me.

[Edited on September 11, 2011 at 11:21 AM. Reason : .]

9/11/2011 11:21:23 AM

I'm going to be a med school cadaver when I die

9/11/2011 11:46:23 AM

i want a natural burial. let the bugs eat me. embalming seems creepy & kinda wrong. i really think it's stupid that people spend so much money trying to prevent the decay of something dead. a sealed casket in a concrete vault in the ground. seriously??? you/your loved one is going to fall apart eventually. why waste all that money?

there are 3 places in NC for natural burial right now:

wake forest
http://www.pineforestmemorial.com/greenburials.html

hendersonville
http://www.forestlawnhendersonville.com (website doesn't mention it but it's listed on http://naturalburial.coop)

asheville
http://www.greenhillscemeteryasheville.com/

the one in wake forest looks closer to what i'd want. just a hole in the ground in the woods somewhere. i'm not interested in a traditional cemetery at all.

really though, i'll be dead & won't care how you get rid of my body. just do something cheap.

9/11/2011 11:47:30 AM

I definitely want my body to be donated to science!

9/11/2011 11:59:37 AM

Coworker told me his wife wants her body to be donated to the Body Farm at Western Carolina. Thought that was pretty tough thing to decide, but hopefully would help expand human knowledge. Plz to let me decompose naturally outside and be constantly examined to determine how decomposition affects the body in different circumstances and situations. Also had an uncle donate his body to science as a cadaver.

9/11/2011 12:00:27 PM

I'd like to be liquefied and made into a special-edition Dentene gum.

To be distributed to my funeral attendees.

9/11/2011 1:10:39 PM

^8, I don't think they worry about something dying getting into teh groundwater. Shit dies all over teh place all teh time and we're doing ok.

Also,

"On August 20, 2005, in a private ceremony, Thompson's ashes were fired from a cannon atop a 153-foot (47 m) tower of his own design (in the shape of a double-thumbed fist clutching a peyote button) to the tune of Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" and Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man."[35] Red, white, blue, and green fireworks were launched along with his ashes."

9/11/2011 1:15:52 PM

I didn't say it made sense, I just honestly thought natural burial was illegal (though maybe not for that exact reason, it was just in the back of my brain somewhere).

9/11/2011 1:29:08 PM

When I die, don't toll no bells
Just put my ashes in some shotgun shells
Get all of my friends some windy day
To say goodbye and watch me blow away.

When the wind dies down and the day gets late
I'll be all scattered all over the state
And you know which state I'm talking about
The place I love and can't live without

9/11/2011 1:58:56 PM

I honestly have no idea what I would want. I know what my family would probably want for me, but I think I'd rather be donated to science. I just can't see spending the kind of money it would cost for a traditional burial. Seems unnecessary. But I also kinda like the idea of cremation. I dunno. I suppose, since I am getting married, I should start thinking about some of this adult stuff.


But I don't wanna


Also, the bolded part about liquification

[Edited on September 11, 2011 at 2:45 PM. Reason : .]

9/11/2011 2:38:35 PM

A Will for the Woods - Trailer from Browne Productions Inc. on Vimeo.

9/11/2011 4:48:03 PM

OP: Fremen deathstill!

LONG LIVE THE FIGHTERS!!!

9/11/2011 7:03:48 PM

I'd like to be buried in satin on a bed of roses. Then sink me in the river at dawn while they sing the words of a love song.

9/12/2011 7:02:29 AM

are all of you really that selfish.

I dont really care what is done with my body when i die.

The people who care about me can choose what they want.

9/13/2011 8:43:42 AM

Quote :

"It's just weird to me that most people seem to accept this as the normal way of doing things, and make comments like, "He looks really good." No, he doesn't actually. He looks dead and nothing like he looked in day-to-day life. He looks like a different / fake person."

This creeps me out too. Last time I went to a funeral with an open casket it really upset me because it's just so fake/creepy looking.

9/13/2011 9:04:14 AM

Lookit dat troll

9/13/2011 9:04:23 AM

Who cares at that point I'm dead. I'll let my wife figure it out

9/13/2011 9:30:00 AM

Quote :

"I dont really care what is done with my body when i die. The people who care about me can choose what they want."

9/13/2011 9:36:31 AM

fileted and sold off the back of some meat truck.

9/13/2011 9:57:26 AM

I plan on being buried in my family graveyard, but I really wanna go the all natural route and just be put in a pine box and buried. The whole preservation thing really creeps me out somehow. I know part of the reason it is done is just to provide some time so that you dont have to do the funeral immediately, it allows you to wait a few days. I guess the natural way you gotta do pretty quick after death?

9/13/2011 9:58:25 AM

have yourself laid out in some weird position or with your hands and feet bound.

that way dumbass archeologists of the future think you died in some strange ritual.

9/13/2011 10:03:18 AM

9/13/2011 10:05:45 AM

Quote :

"This domain violates ImageShack's ToS."

9/13/2011 10:07:07 AM

I want a funeral pyre built on an iceberg. I then want dust in the wind played and have it go into the final countdown. when that starts, I want the iceberg set adrift and somebody to shoot a flaming arrow into the pyre as it is on the horizon, igniting the pyre and my badass fire and ice burial thing

9/13/2011 10:09:10 AM

How do you compost a human body - and why would you?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47031816

YES!!!

Quote :

"This is the vision - in an indoor garden, a honeycomb structure lines the walls, and inside each cell, a human body composts. When it's done, loved ones take home a pot of soil, not an urn of ash. A person's final resting place could be the foundations of a flowerbed or could feed the roots of a tree. This is what Washington state is preparing to legalise. If the bill passes, the western state would be the first in the nation to allow human composting as a burial option. Here's what it means to choose a compost burial - and why a growing group of Americans are eschewing convention for a new way to rest in peace."

Love this... this is exactly what I would like done to me. Specifically, I want some fruit tree to be planted over me so that my molecules become part of it.

1/31/2019 1:42:24 PM