Dissolving the Dead - alkaline hydrolysis?

[yetgdhfgh]

hmmm, i wonder... can you request that your bones be used in some way? would be cool to have mine used in some morbid art display. or have my skull ornamented with silver and amethyst. have the silver set around my skull as a crown and use my finger bones as spikes to encircle it, with a single amethyst in the middle on my forehead.

Well looking at the article you get a whole pile of human bone dust that looks like flour and iam sure you can use that in anyway you see fit!

Hell iam sure if you ask you can have your whole skeleton back if you want its a free country LOL

After all, all this process does is burn every organ and skin off your bones thats it!

[derpkitteh]

Well looking at the article you get a whole pile of human bone dust that looks like flour and iam sure you can use that in anyway you see fit!

Hell iam sure if you ask you can have your whole skeleton back if you want its a free country LOL

After all, all this process does is burn every organ and skin off your bones thats it!

hmmm, i figured keeping your bones wouldn't be legal. like, some kind of law against owning human remains or something, since you can't just go out and bury someone that dies in your backyard or whatever.

[yetgdhfgh]

hmmm, i figured keeping your bones wouldn't be legal. like, some kind of law against owning human remains or something, since you can't just go out and bury someone that dies in your backyard or whatever.

If that weird German in the funny hat can display your remains plus you can give your remains so some students can leave it on a bus for laughs iam sure its legal to have your love ones keep hold of your full skeleton!

[Blobfish]

Cremated ..then put on a space shuttle so that may ashes will orbit around the Earth

Or come back down as meteors ...(shooting stars)

[zoefschildpad]

I don't really care what happens to me after I die, but after all the farting and barbecueing I do in life, I can't imagine my cremation is even remotely relevant in the greater scheme of things.

[Puupi]

How exactly is burying a human corpse environmentally unfriendly​?

[Mihalik]

Waste of time and effort.

The dead should be harvested for any useful components (organs, cells, etc) to help heal the living or conduct research, and the rest can straight up be composted or turned into animal feed or whatever.

Graveyards, cremation etc is all a waste of valuable living space or resources.

Our psychological attachment to hollow biological husks is at minimum misguided and illogical at worst morbid and counter-productive.

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How exactly is burying a human corpse environmentally unfriendly​?

We load corpses with preservative chemicals and usually stick them into metal boxes that contain non degradable metal and chemical components. We also use up countless square kilometers usually around urban areas that could be used for habitation or agriculture or whatever.

In the process we use up massive amounts of fuel and manpower hours.

If we simply dug a hole in the ground and would just stick the corpse in it as it is, that would be fine. But that is not what we are doing.

[Puupi]

We load corpses with preservative chemicals and usually stick them into metal boxes that contain non degradable metal and chemical components.

Metal boxes......what? In what country do you bury people in metal coffins?

We also use up countless square kilometers usually around urban areas that could be used for habitation or agriculture or whatever.

That's a religious problem.

In the process we use up massive amounts of fuel and manpower hours.

If we simply dug a hole in the ground and would just stick the corpse in it as it is, that would be fine. But that is not what we are doing.

So it's not a question of what we are doing, but how. Just throw corpses in a mass grave!

[Blobfish]

Incineration is fine by me. Most of your carbon gets bound with air to CO2, and the other stuff you get as ash in a little bag. Disolving you in some acid seems a bit too messy for my taste.. Your remains are essentially in some goop bath afterwards..

Green groups will probably soon try to ban cremation in an effort to keep down C02 emissions.

[Mihalik]

Metal boxes......what? In what country do you bury people in metal coffins?

Most common and popular coffin materials in the US are steel and fiber glass.

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Out of curiosity, is being buried as you are with no coffin or with a very thin, easily dissolved coffin not environmental?

Cardboard is becoming popular as an eco-friendly alternative, but burials still use massive amounts of space, resources and manpower.

[Deleted]

We also use up countless square kilometers usually around urban areas that could be used for habitation or agriculture or whatever.

You'd have a point if cementeries were only storage places.
They're urban utilities, where people go, walk, rest, put flowers on a grave, pray, catch pokemon or whatevs.
That's not an argument about environmental friendliness, but you not liking how people use urban spaces.

[Puupi]

Most common and popular coffin materials in the US are steel and fiber glass.

So this is an American issue. Just use wood like everyone else (except those who don't have wood).

but burials still use massive amounts of space, resources and manpower.

The bodies need to be dumped somewhere somehow anyway, whether you believe in X god, Y religion or belong to Z church. So resources and manpower will be used one way or another.

Cemeteries are the issue here, and that is entirely a religious issue.

[Santti]

Most common and popular coffin materials in the US are steel and fiber glass.

Which is pretty funny, because they are basically pressure cookers. Eventually something gives in, and all your goo oozes out of the holes in a rather horrible fashion. No idea why they make the coffins completely sealed.

[Mihalik]

The bodies need to be dumped somewhere somehow anyway, whether you believe in X god, Y religion or belong to Z church. So resources and manpower will be used one way or another.

That's the thing. Bodies don't "need" to be dumped. Not if you look at them as raw materials and not as something that needs special storage. When was the last time you ran into a "farm animal cemetery" (we don't eat all the animals we raise, especially ones like horses and other utility animals)?

We either recycle them into animal feed, compost or things like adhesives and gelatins.

[Mihalik]

Composted I can agree but could you possibly use them for feed without it being fairly unsafe? A lot of people die less than healthy and with their bodies pumped full of dangerous chemicals as it is. I'd assume that a cancer patient expiring after several rounds of chemo is better off burned (or as suggested here, dissolved) than used in any way

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_glue I'm sure if we look hard enough we can come up with something that is economically productive while being environmentally friendly.

[Deleted]

My thoughts are that freezing non-dead poeple should be a norm. Yes it damages cells and whatnot, it's impossible yadayada, because we currently lack tech to do it properly, but it only means you'd need to wait longer for tech to catch up to fix it, but who cares in perspective of eternal life?

Altman be praised!

[Puupi]

That's the thing. Bodies don't "need" to be dumped. Not if you look at them as raw materials and not as something that needs special storage. When was the last time you ran into a "farm animal cemetery" (we don't eat all the animals we raise, especially ones like horses and other utility animals)?

We either recycle them into animal feed, compost or things like adhesives and gelatins.

Dumping bodies in the ground is not hurting the environment - it's how nature works.

Now whether you want to make some use of human bodies for human usage, that's another thing and another subject. The Nazis were torchbearers on this practice.

[Stormspark]

Fine with me...you can dissolve me when I die if you want. I'd rather not take up space in the ground.

[Revi]

Not sure why dissolving my body in a chemical tub would be more eco-friendly than just putting me in the ground to let me decompose the natural way.

[P for Pancetta]

My thoughts are that freezing non-dead poeple should be a norm. Yes it damages cells and whatnot, it's impossible yadayada, because we currently lack tech to do it properly, but it only means you'd need to wait longer for tech to catch up to fix it, but who cares in perspective of eternal life?

I agree 100%, by the time they're freezing the last million people they'll have perfected the process