Dealing with your future corpse

[quarky]

There has to be a better way. As it is, the disposal of your corpse will be the final insult to the planet. It will be expensive, but the kids will foot the bill.
If buried, you'll not only deprive the worms of a reasonable meal, you'll likely be flush with formaldehyde. A very fancy box; expensive and well done, will be sacrificed to the gods in your name. It may be the finest peace of furniture you ever had. Such an insult to the craftsmen and the trees. And its on you.

Cremation is a step up, yet your last gift to the eco-system is a pointless release of CO2 from the burners and your body. And its not cheap.

The technology of corpse disposal might be the most primitive technology that we embrace, or tolerate. A conveyer belt powered by woo pulls our corpse into an absurd and wasteful relationship with the planet.

Our dead bodies should give a net gain, biologically, to the world.
There seems to be no sane exit plan for the body.
Yet the problem isn't lack of technology; its a no-brainer.
Its religion and superstition.

How does an atheist and an ecologist dispose of their body, in modern western cultures, in the most carbon neutral way?

I've heard that Sweden allows a composting type of cemetery.
Yet, why should we pay anything at all for our corpse disposal?
Our kids should inherit 10 cents/lb when its sold to the guy that runs the worm farm.

Shouldn't we demand better options?

[Complexity]

I've planted a tree seedling in my chest so I can get a head start.

(I'd like to be cremated when I die)

[Mister Earl]

I'll have my body dried out and converted into a decorative planter.

[citizenzen]

I don't care. And I don't have any off-spring.

You'll just have to figure it out for yourselves.

[quarky]

I swallowed watermelon seeds.


I'm sort of hoping that some of my intestinal flora will survive after my death. Its possible, if done right. Life after death!

We torched my dad. He was a devout atheist and resented the cost of the burn-job. We tried to get permission to bury him in our yard, but there was a mile of red tape we couldn't get through in time.

Complexity, I'd like to have some of your ashes, when I shift to those bacterium in my rotting gut.
That would be cool.

[Complexity]

I'm pretty sure my cats will eat some of me before someone else finds my body.

Does that count as 'green'?

[Wowbagger]

Why not donate your mortal bodies to science? It might be expensive, too. But, at least some benefit could come out of it.

[quarky]

I'm pretty sure my cats will eat some of me before someone else finds my body.

Does that count as 'green'?

It depends on where they poop.

[quarky]

Why not donate your mortal bodies to science? It might be expensive, too. But, at least some benefit could come out of it.

My mom went to science, as did my partner's father. Her mom is still with us and she'd like to do the same, but there's a glut of available bodies for science.

A 'gator farm has some potential. Would you eschew gator tail if you knew they'd been fattened by human corpses?
Would any of our pathogens survive that transition?

If so, the process could be abstracted. Feed us to the fish that we feed to the gators. Something like that. As if something, or someone, somewhere, will be gifted by our very bio-mass...instead of being taxed absurdly...as is mostly the case today.

[caniswalensis]

Who cares? I'll be dead, so screw the earth!

...and believe you me, my dead eyes will be staring glassily out from the door of my huge granite & marble mausoleum, surmounted by a life-sized equestrian statueof my self in bronze; and from the comfort of my hermetically sealed and gold-encrusted glass coffin, in which I have been buried sitting upright on a throne of walrus ivory and condor feathers, my perfectly preserved corpse will grin with a ferocious rictus as the world and its miserable infestation of living things spins to its inevitable demise.

[Blue Mountain]

There has to be a better way. As it is, the disposal of your corpse will be the final insult to the planet. It will be expensive, but the kids will foot the bill.

Hopefully there will be enough money left in your estate that in the end it will be you who foots the bill. Your kids (or whoever handles the estate) will have to pay the cost up front, but hopefully they will be reimbursed from the estate.

One of my brothers died back in January. He wasn't living hand-to-mouth, but neither did he have an impressive bank account. What was there was enough to pay his income tax for the previous year. But fortunately the Canada Pension Plan has a death benefit. Being employed for most of his life meant he made contributions to the CPP, and they paid the benefit. It was more than enough to cover the expenses associated with his cremation.

ETA: I think I totally misinterpreted what quarky meant when he talked about the kids footing the bill. From the context it's strongly implied the following generation or two will foot the environmental bill.

As to the primary topic, I'm not sure of the environmental effects of formaldehyde from a decomposing body in a coffin. Cremation might release a fair amount of CO2, but an internet search indicates there are alternatives available.

[quarky]

I went to my uncle's funeral. He was a great guy, and we always liked each other. Three other people were there, and we saw the casket for a minute or two. It was a fine piece of work. During the burial, i recall feeling sad about that brand new piece of woodwork getting buried.

i'd heard rumors of caskets being re-used. Despicable. Yet, i sort of hope its true. Not the deception; the common sense of doing that.

After science took my mom's brain, her body was torched, and we had to pay to get the ashes. This really steamed my dad. He had zero tolerance for religion and sentiment.
We went to the creamy place to get her ashes, and they wanted to sell him an urn.
He yelled at the post-mortem salesperson "That's not my wife! She's gone! I know that. Why would i want those ashes!"

"Because it will cost $500 dollars if you don't.
We will dump them at sea. Its the law here in Florida."

It was an awkward moment, if you knew my dad.
As we took the $10 cardboard box with the ashes, I turned to the salesman and said "Where's the titanium?"

My dad got a kick out of that.
Mom had two titanium hip joints; barely used; $10,000 each.

There was a very awkward silence.

Yet, it would be sane to recycle these parts.
My partner's 88 year old mom has four expensive parts; 2 knees; two hips.

Her body ought to be worth some money.
These parts are re-usable, as far as I know.

[quarky]

Hopefully there will be enough money left in your estate that in the end it will be you who foots the bill. Your kids (or whoever handles the estate) will have to pay the cost up front, but hopefully they will be reimbursed from the estate.

One of my brothers died back in January. He wasn't living hand-to-mouth, but neither did he have an impressive bank account. What was there was enough to pay his income tax for the previous year. But fortunately the Canada Pension Plan has a death benefit. Being employed for most of his life meant he made contributions to the CPP, and they paid the benefit. It was more than enough to cover the expenses associated with his cremation.

ETA: I think I totally misinterpreted what quarky meant when he talked about the kids footing the bill. From the context it's strongly implied the following generation or two will foot the environmental bill.

As to the primary topic, I'm not sure of the environmental effects of formaldehyde from a decomposing body in a coffin. Cremation might release a fair amount of CO2, but an internet search indicates there are alternatives available.

Thanks for understanding. I must google up the alternatives. Last I looked, they all sucked.

[phildonnia]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkaline_hydrolysis

[quarky]

Cool link!

Yet, even that method, which is still mostly illegal (legal in 7 states), is energy intensive.
As mentioned, there should be a net gain in the disposal method...not a heated and pressurized cauldron of Sodium Hydroxide and cadaver.

Interesting that as twisted as that method is, its a jump ahead of cremation.
Which is a jump ahead of conventional burial.

There remains a barrier of woo, and a morbid desire to have a tangible memory of our departed loved ones.

[ben m]

Is it possible to get buried at sea? Plenty of life will appreciate you down there.

There was a NYT article a few years ago about people handbuilding their own coffins. A nice gesture, I think, and I would think of that time in the woodshop as an appropriate mental space for coming-to-terms. Plus: pick your own wood and finish. Minus: spending eternity staring at my own amateurish joinery, from the inside. "That tenon isn't flush AT ALL." :)

[Kid Eager]

i'm an organ donor, so there should be some recycling happening. The leftovers can be made into a lampshade, for all I care...

[quarky]

i'm an organ donor, so there should be some recycling happening. The leftovers can be made into a lampshade, for all I care...

But why not care? That's what I'm getting at...our last chance to care.

otherwise, we should be fined for littering, so to speak.

My venting on this issue is more than an assault on superstition and bad husbandry...its a quest for a rational sort of spirituality or ethics.

If i don't intervene on my body's behalf, the rest of you will be mildly polluted from its disposal.

Sure, not much...

Yet this issue has symbolic ramifications. It needs a logical outlet.

Its the damn principle of the thing!

[learner]

I expect I will be dripping through the Floor Boards before I am missed. The Dog (trevor) will probably clear up some of the bulk. Suits me.

I hadn't thought of an exit plan for Trev. Can yu put Dog flaps in a Door?

[Vermonter]

Easy enough. Set up corpse starch processing plants in major cities. Ave Imperator!

[Kid Eager]

But why not care? That's what I'm getting at...our last chance to care.

otherwise, we should be fined for littering, so to speak.

My venting on this issue is more than an assault on superstition and bad husbandry...its a quest for a rational sort of spirituality or ethics.

If i don't intervene on my body's behalf, the rest of you will be mildly polluted from its disposal.

Sure, not much...

Yet this issue has symbolic ramifications. It needs a logical outlet.

Its the damn principle of the thing!

Okay, fine then. have some Soylent Green on me, so to speak...

[Skwinty]

When I die I want to be dressed in a superman outfit and thrown out of an aeroplane.:)

[Dave Rogers]

Why not donate your mortal bodies to science? It might be expensive, too. But, at least some benefit could come out of it.

That's what my will requests, more or less. I think it says something along the lines of "the medical profession can take anything it feels will be useful, and I don't much care what happens to the rest."

Dave

[Eddie Dane]

When I die I want to be dressed in a superman outfit and thrown out of an aeroplane.:)

LOL

[Naive1000]

When I die I want to be dressed in a superman outfit and thrown out of an aeroplane.:)

That's funny. I've always told my friends when I die I want to be cremated and then added to pepper shakers with a big sign over them say 'Eat ME!'. :D

[GT/CS]

Who cares? I'll be dead, so screw the earth!

...and believe you me, my dead eyes will be staring glassily out from the door of my huge granite & marble mausoleum, surmounted by a life-sized equestrian statueof my self in bronze; and from the comfort of my hermetically sealed and gold-encrusted glass coffin, in which I have been buried sitting upright on a throne of walrus ivory and condor feathers, my perfectly preserved corpse will grin with a ferocious rictus as the world and its miserable infestation of living things spins to its inevitable demise.

Believe it or not I can supply those for you!!!:)

[Dancing David]

I wanted a sky burial or to have a tree planted on me, as it is, it will be up to my wife, sunk in the ocean would be good as well

[Wolfman]

Well, some Tibetans (and a few other Chinese ethnic minorities) practice sky burials. The body is simply carried to the top of a mountain, and left there to be consumed by animals. Just about the most environmentally friendly way to deal with the body that I can think of. There's not a great deal of religious significance to it, according to my understanding...they believe the soul has already left the body, and in an environment that is both rocky and lacking in a lot of firewood, both burial and cremation are not that practical.

In some cases, after the flesh has been consumed, the bones will be smashed and broken open, so that they too can be consumed.

Me...I think I'd go either for a sky burial, or as Wowbagger suggested, donating my entire body to science.

[GT/CS]

I went to my uncle's funeral. He was a great guy, and we always liked each other. Three other people were there, and we saw the casket for a minute or two. It was a fine piece of work. During the burial, i recall feeling sad about that brand new piece of woodwork getting buried.

i'd heard rumors of caskets being re-used. Despicable. Yet, i sort of hope its true. Not the deception; the common sense of doing that.
<snip>

.

Rental caskets.

They are oversided wood caskets that are used for the funeral service and/or the visitation/viewing. The body is placed in a temporary container which is then placed in the casket. After the service the casket stays in the funeral home but the body and temporary container are taken to the cemetery or crematory.
Much less expensive than buying a casket, and 99.9% of the guests at the services can't tell the difference.

[Donn]

Who cares? I'll be dead, so screw the earth!

...and believe you me, my dead eyes will be staring glassily out from the door of my huge granite & marble mausoleum, surmounted by a life-sized equestrian statueof my self in bronze; and from the comfort of my hermetically sealed and gold-encrusted glass coffin, in which I have been buried sitting upright on a throne of walrus ivory and condor feathers, my perfectly preserved corpse will grin with a ferocious rictus as the world and its miserable infestation of living things spins to its inevitable demise.

^ ^ This. It's possibly the best thing my eyes have seen. :)

[Donn]

As to my own corpse... hoping to leave it on a very fractal mountain side, far away from eyes and noses.

[Cainkane1]

I've donated my boody to medical science.

[Donn]

But can you shake it?


:D

[casebro]

Burial at sea is an option for veterans who qualify for burial at a national cemetery.

But I've talked to retired naval officers who told me that it is a PITA for the sailors aboard the ship that pulls that duty. And being a pita is not the goal of this thread.

Though I'd prefer to feed the fishes over all the other alternatives. And here in California, an individual can pick up remains for "transport". My nephew has a boat, the ocean is 5,000 deep only a couple miles off shore... chain, a couple engine blocks... and naked into the briney deep. Still being a PITA though. But I think it is legal, merely transport remains out of the state?

[Bikewer]

In some areas of India, the dead are left out for vultures. Problem...A lack of vultures, and increasing numbers of bodies.

Of course, there's always the Monty Python solution...."Hey boys, we've got an eater!"

[ToddH]

Two words...soylent green.

[godless dave]

My first choice is to have my body loaded onto a replica of a Viking longship, which will be towed out to sea (or Lake Superior) and set alight with flaming arrows fired from shore.

My second choice is cremation.

My third choice is to be buried without embalming, somewhere where that's legal.

[Sunstealer]

Burn me and produce electricity. I've always wondered whether this would be a good source of fuel.

[AvalonXQ]

Although I have a preference for cremation, I will most likely be buried out of respect for my family.

My family is very sentimental, and they like having a gravesite to visit, to remember and honor the dead. Annual visits on birthdays for beloved parents and siblings are not unusual.

It is important to remember that your funeral arrangements aren't for you; you're dead! They're for the loved ones you leave behind. That's why I think it's important to talk to them about what will help them deal with your loss, rather than just what you yourself would want.

[quarky]

That's what my will requests, more or less. I think it says something along the lines of "the medical profession can take anything it feels will be useful, and I don't much care what happens to the rest."

Dave

What if the 'rest' ends up costing your relatives $1000?

[quarky]

Burn me and produce electricity. I've always wondered whether this would be a good source of fuel.

You'd need to be dehydrated first. Otherwise, cremation wouldn't require fuel.

[Daald]

How about using your body to create biodiesel?

[quarky]

How about using your body to create biodiesel?

Lipo-suction on obese stiffs could supply some fuel, but composting the whole body and using the compost to fertilize a crop would make more sense.

[Dave Rogers]

What if the 'rest' ends up costing your relatives $1000?

Then someone should ask them why they shipped my remains across the Atlantic before burying them.

Dave

[Dymanic]

Although I have a preference for cremation, I will most likely be buried out of respect for my family.

My family is very sentimental, and they like having a gravesite to visit, to remember and honor the dead. Annual visits on birthdays for beloved parents and siblings are not unusual.

It is important to remember that your funeral arrangements aren't for you; you're dead! They're for the loved ones you leave behind. That's why I think it's important to talk to them about what will help them deal with your loss, rather than just what you yourself would want.
I agree.

My dad was cremated and I think my stepmother dumped the ashes at sea, but I wasn't invited (and wouldn't have come anyway). I've always wished there was a place I could visit. There's a part of me that seems to need that. Now, I'm a stone-cold (weak) atheist, so I wouldn't be harboring any delusions about whether visiting that gravesite would be 'visiting my dad', but the part of me that needs that doesn't seem to be so fussy about making distinctions between what constitutes delusion and what does not.

As for me, I have a chronic lung disease that makes me a good candidate for coming up missing at the spring head count every year. I also have a 15-year-old kid (my youngest; the others are grown, with kids of their own). So it's something I think about, mainly with him in mind. I don't know how carbon-neutral it is, but I've always thought the "Ashes to Diamonds" thing was a cool idea. (Not very carbon-neutral at all, is my guess, and about half a hustle to boot -- but still cool). Of course, that dang kid would lose his nose if it wasn't attached to his face, so I get this picture of him frantically rooting around in the bottom of the couch...

[Marduk]

How does an atheist and an ecologist dispose of their body, in modern western cultures, in the most carbon neutral way?


Soylent Green Is People
:D

[JihadJane]

Burn me and produce electricity. I've always wondered whether this would be a good source of fuel.

'Burning deceased humans will produce electricity
Turbines at crematorium will convert heat into as much as 150 kilowatt-hours per corpse (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45526347/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.TuDm5HM9y9S)'


"... enough to power 1,500 televisions for an hour."

[kedo1981]

Donated it to science
My current JRF avatar is a redacted scan of my donation ID card

[CapelDodger]

I have enough things to deal with, so I'm not going to worry about something I definitely won't have to.

[quarky]

Donated it to science
My current JRF avatar is a redacted scan of my donation ID card

AFAIK, 'science' is over-stocked with donated bodies, and it will become difficult to go with that option.

[GT/CS]

Green burial is another option.

No embalming, casket, vault, or permanent marker, so no lasting impact on the environment.
It's becoming fairly popular in the Pacific NW and California.

[GreyArea]

How does an atheist and an ecologist dispose of their body, in modern western cultures, in the most carbon neutral way?
Have you looked into natural or green burial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_burial)?


As for myself, what would I have to do to increase my chances of becoming a fossil?

(And if you're thinking of telling me I already am, you can get off of my lawn.)

[I Ratant]

Well, some Tibetans (and a few other Chinese ethnic minorities) practice sky burials. The body is simply carried to the top of a mountain, and left there to be consumed by animals. Just about the most environmentally friendly way to deal with the body that I can think of. There's not a great deal of religious significance to it, according to my understanding...they believe the soul has already left the body, and in an environment that is both rocky and lacking in a lot of firewood, both burial and cremation are not that practical.

In some cases, after the flesh has been consumed, the bones will be smashed and broken open, so that they too can be consumed.

Me...I think I'd go either for a sky burial, or as Wowbagger suggested, donating my entire body to science.
.
"Towers of Silence" in India.
.
Couple guys in the model airplane club had their ashes scattered at the flying field.
.
I'd go for cremation. Don't care what happens to the ashes.

[Lithrael]

AFAIK, 'science' is over-stocked with donated bodies, and it will become difficult to go with that option.


Really? Most I could google up was that they were overstocked in Tennessee a couple years ago. I can hardly imagine that every med school everywhere has already got plenty of nice fresh cadavers for their students. Is there already some kind of matching service for donors and institutions that I don't know about? As far as I can tell it's more like people have to find places that accept donations and call around to try to find one that's interested.

[Dave Rogers]

Green burial is another option.

No embalming, casket, vault, or permanent marker, so no lasting impact on the environment.
It's becoming fairly popular in the Pacific NW and California.

That's more or less how my mother-in-law was buried, except that she was buried in a wickerwork coffin - environmentally sustainable, being made from renewable materials that will eventually rot away. I expect that's what my family will do with whatever leftover bits of me the NHS doesn't want, because they're a very sensible bunch on the whole. But, as AvalonXQ rightly says, it's their feelings that matter, because I won't have any feelings by then, so I'll leave it up to them.

Dave

[godless dave]

Although I have a preference for cremation, I will most likely be buried out of respect for my family.

My family is very sentimental, and they like having a gravesite to visit, to remember and honor the dead. Annual visits on birthdays for beloved parents and siblings are not unusual.

I believe some cemeteries will bury cremated remains and put up a headstone, or just put up a headstone, or store cremated remains in an urn in a vault that people can visit.

My grandmother has a headstone next to her husband, but her remains aren't buried there. She donated her body to a medical school. They cremated it when they were finished, and her wishes were to have her ashes scattered in Vermont.

[Belz...]

I'd like to be composted when I die. Unfortunately the law doesn't allow that.

[quarky]

Have you looked into natural or green burial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_burial)?


As for myself, what would I have to do to increase my chances of becoming a fossil?

(And if you're thinking of telling me I already am, you can get off of my lawn.)

I think I started a thread on that subject a few years ago:
How would one go about becoming a fossil?
Primates are notoriously shy at becoming fossils, and the few that have been found are quite valuable to science.

I recently read (who knows where) that somewhere, there is a mummification option.

My dad, the anti-sentimental devout atheist and chemist, discussed with me the possibility of extracting the metals from his bio-mass, and making an ingot from them, to be worn as a pendant. Strange guy. He didn't mind talking about such stuff on his death bed, and we had lots of laughs over it, plus some last minute math.

[quarky]

I will look into the green options. Not sure yet if they are legal everywhere.

[godless dave]

Another option: http://www.disinfo.com/2011/12/turn-deceased-loved-ones-ashes-into-bullets/

[GT/CS]

I believe some cemeteries will bury cremated remains and put up a headstone, or just put up a headstone, or store cremated remains in an urn in a vault that people can visit.

My grandmother has a headstone next to her husband, but her remains aren't buried there. She donated her body to a medical school. They cremated it when they were finished, and her wishes were to have her ashes scattered in Vermont.

Most cemeteries have a number of cremation memorialization options. Many have cremation-only areas.

The photo on the left is an amazing one on a mountain just West of Denver.
The granite covered holes in the stone columns are for cremated remains, as is the granite bench.

The photo on the right is a cremation garden in another Denver cemetery. The photo shows various cremation placement options.

[Brattus]

I will look into the green options. Not sure yet if they are legal everywhere.

I'm not buying your concern over being green after your death.
If you were sincere then you would simply walk yourself out to the middle of a forest somewhere and eat a bullet or drink some poison.

You want someone else to do the work.

For me just set my remains out with the weekly garbage.
Decomposing in a landfill is the best way all around.

[wardenclyffe]

I'd like to become a science classroom skeleton.

Ward

[quarky]

I'm not buying your concern over being green after your death.
If you were sincere then you would simply walk yourself out to the middle of a forest somewhere and eat a bullet or drink some poison.

You want someone else to do the work.

For me just set my remains out with the weekly garbage.
Decomposing in a landfill is the best way all around.

I honor your intelligence for calling my bluff on this.
Yet, i may be deeper than the surface fluffiness.

Your options would actually end up being the most carbon-spewing of all other options. Suppose the dying codger managed to fall out of a boat at sea...

There would be a search. there would be an investigation.
There would be expense and hassle and emotional distress left behind...clean as it may seem at first thought.

Even self-euthanasia, which I believe is fundamentally different than suicide, is a journey into post-mortem hassles; expenses; and ultimately, more carbon spewage.

My oldest brother went that route, thinking it would be the most elegant way to exit. Even though he had discussed it with everyone that mattered to him, and he was doomed to a hellish end-game, the act itself turned the matter into a criminal investigation, with endless hassles. The T.B.I. insisted on doing an autopsy, even though the cause of death couldn't have been more obvious. This made the option of a relatively green disposal very difficult.

I should tell this whole tale in Community. Its got an "Alice's Restaurant" type of hilarity.

Back on topic, suppose it was your desire to dispose of your corpse in a way that taxed the world the least; that left the smallest bill for your kid; that required the minimal hassles and CO2 emissions...
(Ignore the question if this simply isn't a goal in your life. That's fine. I'm addressing the possibility that this last gesture is significant; a gesture of love; atheism; ecological concern; symbolic intent; spirituality, even, within a generally hostile woo-bent cultural imperative)

Wandering off and being eaten by a grizzly bear would be swell, biologically.
But there would be ramifications; expensive ones.

dealing with all this is a bit morbid, I suppose. yet, if one does care about it, it requires a pre-emptive, pro-active effort...and its not easy to cut through the guff.

Imagine that you simply dropped dead in your cubicle, today, in the middle of a game of solitaire...

A conveyor belt of crazy activity and ca-chings would follow.
What a hassle you caused, by innocently dropping dead, playing solitaire, when you should have been processing invoices.

Being eaten by a shark would be even worse, as per the costs of the actions that would follow. Its not as easy as one would think; to dispose of one's corpse in the most responsible way, on all levels.

As per accommodating the wishes of the survivors, and their emotional well being: That is relevant and sweet. yet, it falls into that touchy category of a critical thinker's responsibility to his or hers woo connected relationships.

There is something wildly parasitic about this machinery of corpse disposal.
Families that can't afford insurance get conned into buying a casket that costs more than their annual salary. Head stones in a cemetery?
Not cheap. And there is such a heavy status-related oppressiveness; you don't want Grandpa's head-stone to be the cheapest one in the grave yard.

There is much obscenity in all of this, although one might argue that there are overall economic advantages in keeping the process as insane as possible.

I'd like the discussion to be beyond economics, which is why I'm inclined to focus on ecology.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Donate your body to science/medicine and tell them to take anything that could possibly be useful. Then the rest will be cremated.

My father-in-law passed away recently and did this. They first took his eyes, then the rest went to a medical school. He was 92.

~~ Paul

[CynicalSkeptic]

My third choice is to be buried without embalming, somewhere where that's legal.


Something tells me it is legal, just not done by default. You have to explicitly request it "for religious reasons".

http://www.funerals.org/index.php/frequently-asked-questions/28-arrangements/48-what-you-should-know-about-embalming

Embalming is considered a desecration of the body by orthodox Jewish and Muslim religions. Hindus and Buddhists choosing cremation have no need for embalming.

[quarky]

Something tells me it is legal, just not done by default. You have to explicitly request it "for religious reasons".

http://www.funerals.org/index.php/frequently-asked-questions/28-arrangements/48-what-you-should-know-about-embalming

Exactly. One needs to be on top of the conveyor belt.The 'default' process is not the green one.

[Rara]

My son died two years ago. We live on a small island,so we had to travel to the mainland to collect him.

We hired a van,transferred to ferry,and then used our estate car to take him home .

He is buried on our land.He is in a cardboard coffin,and we have gradually brought stones from the beach to create a cairn.

Unfortunately,because we had to travel on a ferry,we also had to purchase a wooden coffin.

He killed himself,so there was an inquest about six months later,but he was released to us straight away.

Again,because we lived so far away from where he died,we had to use the services of a funeral director,to collect his body from the hospital (actually,I`m not sure where he was),until we arrived.

Both my husband and I will be buried here also. I had said,before my sons death,that I was to be buried in a shroud only. i now realise,that it is easier to handle a body in a coffin...or maybe some sort of board/sled?

my neighbour had to assist my husband in transferring him from one coffin to another. The funeral director suggested an internal body bag,and it was a great help.

The area where he is buried,will be fenced this year,as we will use it to move on tree saplings from being indoors, a tree nursery.

my only concern for our burials is having someone to dig the graves. My other sons did not feel able to help with my sons grave being dug....so who will dig ours.

Maybe,it won`t be so hard to bury us,as it tends to feel more "natural" to bury your parents,than to bury a young,22 years old,sibling.

my husband and I have talked of digging our own graves,and backfilling it with sand,to make subsequent grave digging easier.

we have stipulated most strongly,that very little,or even no money should be spent on funerals.

We had a memorial ceremony,for him,which was humanist (well just made up actually)

Bodies,coffins,graves...none of that bothers me,they are only the artefacts of death,the loss of a person isn`t about that,it is about their essential being missing.

[quarky]

Rara, much thanks and empathy in sharing that.
I love the idea of the pre-dug hole, filled with sand.

You sound like amazingly decent humans, and I'm sorry for your loss.

[dogjones]

How about the ol' traditional Tibetan way of being carved up and fed to the vultures?

[Brian-M]

There may be no rational reason for existing burial practices, but there is an emotional one. The familiar ritual brings a degree of comfort to friends and family of the deceased.

But there's no reason why this can't be done in an environmentally friendly way. Why not replace cemeteries with large blocks of rural land. Bury the deceased unembalmed, wrapped in a shroud instead of a coffin, directly in the soil. No headstone, grave marker or underground concrete to stop the ground slowly caving in. Then a tree could be planted on top, to mark their final resting place, so that over time the roots will eventually use the remains as a source of nutrients, giving part of the deceased life once again.

That's how I think it should be.

...and believe you me, my dead eyes will be staring glassily out from the door of my huge granite & marble mausoleum, surmounted by a life-sized equestrian statueof my self in bronze;

Why not skip the statue business, and just have yourself bronzed? Better yet, have your body sealed in a transparent acrylic block, heavily irradiated to prevent decomposition, and your next of kin could use you as a coffee table. It'd make an interesting conversation piece.

[Bram Kaandorp]

Why not skip the statue business, and just have yourself bronzed? Better yet, have your body sealed in a transparent acrylic block, heavily irradiated to prevent decomposition, and your next of kin could use you as a coffee table. It'd make an interesting conversation piece.

Just as long as you shorten it shout a bit first... Sorry, wrong sketch.

[quarky]

There may be no rational reason for existing burial practices, but there is an emotional one. The familiar ritual brings a degree of comfort to friends and family of the deceased.

But there's no reason why this can't be done in an environmentally friendly way. Why not replace cemeteries with large blocks of rural land. Bury the deceased unembalmed, wrapped in a shroud instead of a coffin, directly in the soil. No headstone, grave marker or underground concrete to stop the ground slowly caving in. Then a tree could be planted on top, to mark their final resting place, so that over time the roots will eventually use the remains as a source of nutrients, giving part of the deceased life once again.

That's how I think it should be.



Why not skip the statue business, and just have yourself bronzed? Better yet, have your body sealed in a transparent acrylic block, heavily irradiated to prevent decomposition, and your next of kin could use you as a coffee table. It'd make an interesting conversation piece.

I agree. The residual sentimentality should be transferable to a tree or bush, or even a patch of blueberries. If anything, it would be a warmer, more intimate experience, visiting such a grave yard.

[CapelDodger]

I will look into the green options. Not sure yet if they are legal everywhere.

I've made provision for a green burial in my will. I've also made provision for my heart to be taken out and delivered to the woman who broke it, which I'm pretty sure isn't legal anywhere. She'll appreciate the joke, though, which is why I love her so much.

[CapelDodger]

How about the ol' traditional Tibetan way of being carved up and fed to the vultures?

I've always made it a rule not to cross the Tibetan Mafia.

[Dr.Sid]

How about the ol' traditional Tibetan way of being carved up and fed to the vultures?

That's fine .. but where would you get all those vultures ? I say feed it to pigs. We have lots of them, and I hear they can even eat bones. We eat them all the time, so why not give them some fun too ?

[casebro]

I like the ingot idea for a memorial. An since ashes are mostly metal oxides, I would think they could be smelted, or dissolved in acid and electroplated out of solution.

Nah, I don't think that chemistry would work. But how about ceramics? Throw me into a pot- Make me the urn, use it for somebody else's ashes? Sculpt a bust of me- something my nephews could throw rocks at?

[Naive1000]

Now theres an interesting idea for a married couple. Take the first one to dies ashes and make it into an urn. Then when the other one dies place their ashes in to it. Kind of like holding one another forever :).

[Cainkane1]

The Zoroastrians do this. Carrion birds consume the bodies.

[quarky]

Now theres an interesting idea for a married couple. Take the first one to dies ashes and make it into an urn. Then when the other one dies place their ashes in to it. Kind of like holding one another forever :).

A bit Mormon-esque for my tastes.

As per vultures, this works in rural Tibet. The options are rather limited, and the body count flow is minimal. In NYC, for instance, this wouldn't work.

there are serious and legitimate concerns in processing the dead. We harbor the pathogens that are dangerous to us.

becoming pig-slop is actually fairly reasonable. No shortage of pigs; they would gladly consume the slop that we become, and turn it into bacon.

I'm not sure if this would be a completely safe approach. Maybe.
Might prion-like disease vectors remain intact, with such a direct approach?
i don't know.
The 'yuck factor' for me is not an issue in hog-feed funeral scenarios.
The yuck factor is alive and well in the business as usual.

I avoided the hog-feed scenario because i thought it would offend.
Yet, a large confined hog operation could process all the cadavers we could throw at it...unlike the vulture pecking show.

A catfish farm could also handle some stiffs.
I honestly don't know if such an approach might harbor disease vectors.

The safest way to be tossed into the mix, like everything else besides us, would be to feed the soil that feeds plants. To avoid the yuck factor as much as possible, said fertilizer would feed a non-food crop. There are many obvious possibilities within that angle.

I'm surprised that there isn't some sort of religious affiliation with the notion of returning one's body to active biological systems, a.s.a.p.

Modern western cultures lean over backwards to do the opposite; preserve the state of deadness for as long as possible, using gross chemicals and processes; sealing granny in a tight box; putting that 6' under...under the recycling zone of the hungry microbes and invertebrates.

I find that to be the most morbid of all scenarios; pretending to keep the corpse intact, as if it may have a chance to rise up again, like a zombie of the lord.
Funny that Christians seem to favor the angle that suggests a complete lack of faith in the ongoing life of the spirit of the dead person. Its more like a faith in the ongoing life of the corpse; 6' under; in a snazzy box; dressed in their finest clothes.

What a serious disconnect we've established with the Earth and its biological systems. It is quite glaring; possibly our craziest collective superstitious behavior.

[Andrew Wiggin]

I've made provision for a green burial in my will. I've also made provision for my heart to be taken out and delivered to the woman who broke it, which I'm pretty sure isn't legal anywhere. She'll appreciate the joke, though, which is why I love her so much.

It probably won't be legal some day in the future when James Randi's ashes are blown into Yuri Geller's eyes, but I bet someone out there will make that happen.

[Brian-M]

becoming pig-slop is actually fairly reasonable. No shortage of pigs; they would gladly consume the slop that we become, and turn it into bacon.

I'm not sure if this would be a completely safe approach. Maybe.
Might prion-like disease vectors remain intact, with such a direct approach?
i don't know.

Such as Kuru (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_%28disease%29)? Pigs may be similar enough to humans that it may be possible for them to harbor the disease, and pass it on to humans once again.

[Eddie Dane]

Such as Kuru (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_%28disease%29)? Pigs may be similar enough to humans that it may be possible for them to harbor the disease, and pass it on to humans once again.

It would also be seriously bad PR for the meat industry.

[casebro]

How about a rip through the shredder then into the MIlorganite processing line?

Or shred, then check out "Molecular Depolymerization", a system of heat and pressure that turns EVERYTHING into fuel oil.

[Sideroxylon]

You don't get to keep the coffin in Turkey and I assume other Islamic countries. The body goes into the hole wrapped in a shroud. Burial plots are also reused.

[Blue Bubble]

My son died two years ago. We live on a small island,so we had to travel to the mainland to collect him.

We hired a van,transferred to ferry,and then used our estate car to take him home .

He is buried on our land.He is in a cardboard coffin,and we have gradually brought stones from the beach to create a cairn.

Unfortunately,because we had to travel on a ferry,we also had to purchase a wooden coffin.

He killed himself,so there was an inquest about six months later,but he was released to us straight away.

Again,because we lived so far away from where he died,we had to use the services of a funeral director,to collect his body from the hospital (actually,I`m not sure where he was),until we arrived.

Both my husband and I will be buried here also. I had said,before my sons death,that I was to be buried in a shroud only. i now realise,that it is easier to handle a body in a coffin...or maybe some sort of board/sled?

my neighbour had to assist my husband in transferring him from one coffin to another. The funeral director suggested an internal body bag,and it was a great help.

The area where he is buried,will be fenced this year,as we will use it to move on tree saplings from being indoors, a tree nursery.

my only concern for our burials is having someone to dig the graves. My other sons did not feel able to help with my sons grave being dug....so who will dig ours.

Maybe,it won`t be so hard to bury us,as it tends to feel more "natural" to bury your parents,than to bury a young,22 years old,sibling.

my husband and I have talked of digging our own graves,and backfilling it with sand,to make subsequent grave digging easier.

we have stipulated most strongly,that very little,or even no money should be spent on funerals.

We had a memorial ceremony,for him,which was humanist (well just made up actually)

Bodies,coffins,graves...none of that bothers me,they are only the artefacts of death,the loss of a person isn`t about that,it is about their essential being missing.


Rara, thank you for sharing that very personal story. Am I correct in thinking you are crofting on Shetland ?

[Halfcentaur]

I've always thought it was messed up how families go out of their way, especially poor families, to pay for a funeral and burial. It seems such a waste. When my mother died, I was 25 and had no idea really what to do, it was not expected. She had mentioned cremation in the past, and it was the least expensive means to an end, and I've always found funeral burial to be cheap and tacky.

She loved the Washington Peninsula, and made us drive there from Oklahoma every other year just about, having lived there when she was younger. We had a free service at the local Nazarene church she sometimes attended, and then had a nice road trip through her favorite places to visit ending at Ruby Beach in Washington, where we spread her ashes in the Pacific.

It was a good ritual, and it brought emotional closure in many ways. And we spread her ashes before a very distinct rock formation as the tide came in. So while there is no grave to visit, I always feel closest to her when I make the drive there and stand on that rock formation. We did the same thing for my father this summer.

I think I will want the same for me, though having a tree growing out of my body seems cool.

Having my skeleton artificially fossilized would be awesome too, but I made a thread about that and it's not as simple as it sounds.

[billw]

Why not donate your mortal bodies to science? It might be expensive, too. But, at least some benefit could come out of it.

Ha.

My parents had to deal with the deaths/funerals of their parents while I was still an infant, so I have no memory of whatever difficulties and pain they encountered. Based on their experiences, my parents decided - over 40 years prior to their actual deaths - to donate their bodies to science, so as not to have to put their kids through the same ordeal. In order to minimize body transport distance (my dad was an engineer), they chose the UCLA Medical School, close to where they lived.

So when my mom died in late 2003, we called the number on her donation card, and UCLA came and picked her up and took her away. Then, a few months later, this happened:

UCLA Suspends Body-Donor Program After Alleged Abuses

Medical school's actions follow accusations that cadavers have been sold illegally to outsiders.


March 10, 2004|Charles Ornstein and Alan Zarembo | Times Staff Writers


The UCLA medical school announced Tuesday that it would indefinitely suspend, and perhaps permanently close, its body-donor program in response to a burgeoning scandal over the allegedly illegal sale of hundreds of cadavers.


The decision by top medical school and university administrators came amid a court hearing in which lawyers representing relatives of cadaver donors sought to force the closing of the program, arguing that it was in such disarray it could not function properly.

http://articles.latimes.com/images/pixel.gif


UCLA had contended, both in court papers and at a news conference Monday, that closing the program, the oldest in the nation, would impair medical education and research.


But officials abandoned that position as disclosures mounted about the scope of the scandal.


"Partly because it's gotten so much widespread negative press, it seemed like it maybe made better sense" to suspend the program than operate it under a cloud, said Dr. Alan G. Robinson, UCLA's associate vice chancellor for medical sciences.


In other developments Tuesday, a major pharmaceutical company, Johnson & Johnson, acknowledged that a subsidiary had bought body parts from UCLA cadavers through a middleman, Ernest V. Nelson, who was arrested over the weekend on suspicion of receiving stolen property.


The subsidiary, Mitek, "did not knowingly receive samples that may have been obtained in an inappropriate way," Johnson & Johnson said in a written statement. "We are sensitive to the need that all samples are appropriately and properly obtained, stored and shipped."


Lawyers for the families of cadaver donors on Tuesday filed suit against Johnson & Johnson, alleging that the company should take responsibility for "accepting stolen parts."


Medical school officials said they wouldn't decide whether to reopen the willed-body program until they received suggestions from former Gov. George Deukmejian, who has agreed to oversee an administrative investigation and suggest reforms.


In the meantime, bodies that had been scheduled to go to UCLA were being sent to UC Irvine, which itself was embroiled in a scandal involving stolen body parts in 1999. At that time, the director was fired after allegedly selling six spines to a Phoenix research company for $5,000. Campus officials there say their program now runs well and they keep better track of bodies.


Phone calls to the UCLA program to report a death were being transferred to UC Irvine, said Michael Godsey, director of UC Irvine's program. That campus received its first UCLA cadaver Tuesday, but Godsey said UC Irvine would not use the UCLA cadavers unless the families give them permission.

"The only services we're providing is a place for the bodies to be taken and held in storage until the use can be determined," Godsey said.

At UCLA, the bodies in the refrigerator will remain there under lock and key, officials said. They could not say how many there are.


Link to full article: http://articles.latimes.com/print/2004/mar/10/local/me-bodies10

Since the UCLA body donation program was shut down, we had to shift my dad to the only other body donation program in town: the USC Medical School. So when my lifelong Bruin fan dad passed away in 2004, he ended up in the hands of the crosstown rival.

Who knows where mom ended up.

[Halfcentaur]

My grandmother, who strangely though being one of the most strictly religious Christians I've known, was cremated. But only after donating her body to the OU Medical Center here i n Oklahoma City. 3 years or so after she died, we came home to find a large package had dislodged the mail box from the wall on our porch due to it's weight, and grandma's box was laying on the ground amidst pieces of of mail box.

[Rara]

Blue Bubble,yes we are crofters.
having private land makes all the difference. We had considered running the croft as a greenfield burial site,but there are too many problems,drainage,parking etc.
But if anyone needs a plot let me know....as long as your family does`nt want to park here..we`ll be fine.

[Rara]

Actually,my husband had at one time been the village grave digger....but an incident in a very wet grave...both of us trying to bail it out as the coffin was taken into the church..put paid to that.

The council then took it over and now use a small digger...oh and they had the grave yard drained...after being told for many years it needed doing.

It was simultaneously, the most embarrassing and hilarious moment of my life. knee deep in water and mud,trying to discretely empty the grave,while the whole village pretended they could not see what was going on.

[Dinwar]

Having my skeleton artificially fossilized would be awesome too, but I made a thread about that and it's not as simple as it sounds. Really? What's the problem with it? I mean, take out the organs that anyone could need and mascerate the my remains, but then dip them in tree sap and let it harden properly and you've got a fossil. In fact, you don't really NEED to take the organs out--we've got numerous examples of lizards and the like that have been preserved in amber--but it's helps tip the odds in your favor. Have yourself buried in a bajada in Death or Pahrump Valley, and you'll stick around for a long, long, long time.

Yes, I've thought about this a bit too much. It's an occupational hazard--once you start studying taphonomy things like planning your own funeral at 27 years old don't bother you.

In fact, if it weren't for my facination with turning myself into a fossil I'd donate myself to a body farm. They probably represent the greatest (in terms of both the quality of the data and the size of the dataset) study of taphonomy in human history for large mammals. I've been toying with the idea of contacting one to ask about that kind of thing, but my wife gets upset when I get put on new federal watch lists (I know I'm on the FBI and CIA watch list, because I or my relatives have been contacted by both agencies).

Modern western cultures lean over backwards to do the opposite; preserve the state of deadness for as long as possibleIt's the way we deal with things. Take a look at the EPA guidelines for sanitary landfills sometime--the whole goal is to keep the garbage in the same form for as long as possible.

I will say that you're mistaken on Christian views, though. Up until very recently (like, within my lifetime) Roman Catholic dogma, at least, was that the body would physically rise from the dead when Jesus returned. This lead to a fun conversation between me and a priest. I've got enough genetic problems that I don't WANT my current body. If I make it to be raised from the dead and I get this crapy thing back, Jesus and I are going to have a long discussion involving my maul. Apparently, threatening to club Jesus is something the RCC finds offensive.

[GT/CS]

How about turning your ashes into a diamond?
http://www.cremationsolutions.com/Cremation-Diamonds-Made-From-Ashes-c39.html

[quarky]

Having the shrunken head of a dead loved one would be pretty cool. Hanging from the rear-view mirror.

[Dinwar]

I assume it would be disrespectful to rig it so that the jaw moved and played a recording, so it looks like it's telling really bad jokes?

[ben m]

Really? What's the problem with it? I mean, take out the organs that anyone could need and mascerate the my remains, but then dip them in tree sap and let it harden properly and you've got a fossil. In fact, you don't really NEED to take the organs out--we've got numerous examples of lizards and the like that have been preserved in amber--but it's helps tip the odds in your favor. Have yourself buried in a bajada in Death or Pahrump Valley, and you'll stick around for a long, long, long time.

How about a real, mineral-replacement sort of fossil? If there was a recipe for that, it'd be awesome. Especially if the result were a pretty, colorful rock---a marble-y, agate-y sort of thing.

What do you think of "Doctor Fossil's Dermestid Beetle and Serpentinization Parlor" as a name for a mortuary?

[Dinwar]

How about a real, mineral-replacement sort of fossil? The term "fossil" technically means "anything that's biological in origin and more than 10,000 years old". Mineralization, permineralization, casts, and molds are merely the most common types of fossils--they hardly represent the entire spectrum. I've even found bone that has has NOTHING done to it--it just sat there in the mud by a river bank for 10,000 years. It's a fossil (it'd better be--that civil engineer will be MAD if he finds out I diverted his excavator for no reason!).

But your point is valid. And I can think of several ways to do this. The simplest would be to cut a hole in the bone and inject clay minerals into it, then bake it to make the bone ceramic. Another way would be to put it in some water that's super-saturated with silica, and in such a condition that the water disolves calcite. I've seen a lot of brachiopod and crinoid fossils that are exactly that (there's a transition from calcite-depositing to silica-depositing water in the ocean). Finally, make a mold of the bone out of clay and fire it. It's simple, cheap, and is no different than a huge number of fossils we have. You can even make a cast if you want to. Or, you can make the mold out of something semi-flexible, and make the cast out of metal. Now there's a thought--a bronze skeleton of me. I like that idea! :D

What do you think of "Doctor Fossil's Dermestid Beetle and Serpentinization Parlor" as a name for a mortuary? I'd buy stock in it, if you'd let me burrow your beetles from time to time. The wife objects to having flesh-eating bugs in the house for some reason. I think she never really understood what marrying a paleontologist involved (at least I'm not trying to do a cold-water masceration).

[quarky]

I assume it would be disrespectful to rig it so that the jaw moved and played a recording, so it looks like it's telling really bad jokes?

Depending on your family history, what you suggest would show the utmost respect.

[Brian-M]

The term "fossil" technically means "anything that's biological in origin and more than 10,000 years old".

So my idea of encasing the body in a transparent acrylic block and irradiating it to prevent decomposition would yield a product that would some day be considered a fossil?

Good to know.

[Dinwar]

Yup.

There are areas where the time averaging (basically mixing over time) is more than 10,000 years--modern mollusk shells in areas of the Gulf of Mexico, for example, may lie next to fossil shells. And there are fossils we dig out of the rock that are unaltered--except for the fact that the critter is no longer in it, they look like they did when the animal was alive. There's no way, barring oxygen/carbon isotope analysis, to determine how old it is, because the species is still around.

[Naive1000]

A bit Mormon-esque for my tastes. ...[snip]...

Okay, how was my idea Mormon-esque in any way? I have never really looked into Mormonism, as I've always just considered it another flavor of Christianity, so I must be missing something here. Please explain, thanks.

[quarky]

Okay, how was my idea Mormon-esque in any way? I have never really looked into Mormonism, as I've always just considered it another flavor of Christianity, so I must be missing something here. Please explain, thanks.

Mormons get 'sealed' for all eternity in marriage. So they don't even get to part in death. So your idea reminded me of that. It was tongue-in-cheek, though. It was a nifty idea.

[Naive1000]

Got it. I get your point though. Since I'm an atheist, I didn't think about the metaphysical aspect of truly being stuck together with anyone for all eternity ... that would be creepy. Heck, I don't want to spend eternity with myself much less anyone else :D.