Bury, Cremate, or... Liquify???

Bury, Cremate, or... Liquify???

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New idea in mortuary science: Dissolving bodies with lye

As the world's largest majority population, the dead, continue to increase in number, the traditional option of burial not only becomes more expensive, but also less pragmatic. The $6000 average cost aside, eventually the whole planet could merely be one big cemetery. Cremation has become more popular, lately, but concerns about pollution, global warming, and even the rather prohibitive cost of an urn will continue to increase in significance. So now we are on the verge of being offered a third, very untraditional and, up until now, negatively viewed option: Liquifaction. No container needed. No land needed. No shrine needed. Just wash, condense, liquify, and pour. Very cheap, very efficient, very uncomfortable to think about.



What would you choose?

And for our more orthodox members, would this count as keeping the entire body together, since the liquid would be one entity? What if the liquid were frozen and then disposed of?

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I was uncomfortable until I saw that the bone shadows could be kept kind of like ashes after cremation. It's more environmentally sound, more efficient, and there is still part of you left. I like it.

The thought of it sounds grusome, but maybe better than to be buried for $6000. I rather someone just burn my body in the back yard or something.

Well I don't dislike the idea, but why the hell would you give families the option of keeping the liquid??

So what you left with after the process is complete is basically a bubbling, brown cup of organic poop essentially?
And there supposed to cherish this?
Maybe display up on the mantle in the living room?

It's a bit off-kilter keeping a vial or jar of brown sludge that used to be your granddad or something.

Well, speaking personally, I'd want to be made into a Lava Lamp.

I have already instructed my children to cremate me. I even went so far as to buy a brass urn. I wanted them to know I am ok with it. I have picture of my laughing and giggling holding the urn. I need them to know that my death ( whenever it happens) is just a new beginning for them.

Mind you they don't like to hear about my death and think I am nuts.

[edit on 9/5/08 by Rhain]

Unless someone comes to me with irrefutable proof that I will somehow need my body after I am dead, I don't particularly care what happens to the vessel.

So with that in mind, I'd go for the cleanest, greenest option everytime - if nothing else, it may help future generations.

Plus I'll be cheating them pesky worms out of a free lunch

I want to go like those spiders and insects eternally encased in an acrylic cube.

Just lay the prepared body in the "vat" and pour in the acrylic.

Maybe my grandkids can put me in a corner somewhere like a frozen statue or something...

'Liquefying' our bodies after death is another option we all could consider since the human body is over 50 percent water. This process sounds environmentally 'friendly'. I am wondering, though, about the cost effectiveness for 'third world' countries.

[edit on 2008-5-09 by pikypiky]

theres a fourth option your not considering its a bit pricey from what i can tell but not only will you remain to be loved and cherished by your family but you become a beautiful thing of value your wife, partner or relative could wear with them always with out grossing people out.
you can have your ashes compressed and turned in to a diamond.

jewelry.about.com...

Ooo! Synthetic diamonds is more brilliant, fiery and harder than naturally made diamonds. I wonder what is the largest carat that could be synthesized from one person. That 'sentimental value' must be worth lots, too.

the average size for a synthetic diamond made from a single persons ashes ranges between .5 carats to 1 carat as far as iv seen when researching it.

[edit on 5/9/2008 by krill]

Wow, well that is certainly an interesting option and worth consideration.
Thanks for the info.

LOL...I thought Lava Lamp too!

I want a Viking Funeral. LOL

This all sounds well and good, until somebody determines that some portion of this process increases some chemical or element level in the water after Grandpa has passed down the drain, through the pipes, through the water treatment facillity, and out into the ocean. They'll start catching tuna which contain trace amounts of pain killers or high blood pressure drugs or something of that nature.

I'll stick with being buried, thank you. Unlike a couple of you so far posting in this thread, I actually want a big to-do made over my passing in 50 or 60 years. I like the idea of people flinging themselves onto my casket screaming "No! You can't take him from us!" at the heavens. It makes me smile to imagine my grand children and great grandchildren somberly standing by my statue monument with their little eyes welling up knowing their dead ancestor is underfoot. I won't have to worry about some accident happening where the urn with my ashes accidentally gets knocked off the mantle and I'm suddenly imbedded in the livingroom carpet. It just seems like the right way to do things for me.

If they're flushing the body down the drain, wouldn't it be sent to a sewage processing plant?

Never mind the thought of someone sending their loved ones into an area where human waste goes, but what about the fact that sewage water is essentially recycled into drinking water? We would be drinking our loved one's remains.

No thank you to being liquefied. The diamond option sounds interesting, until 50 years from now your grandchild turns around and pawns you and you wind up on the finger of someone else. Wouldn't that be creepy, not knowing if you had a persons remains on your finger or in your ear?

I like Keith Richards' idea better!

Seriously, I don't think I'm too cool with more crap being flushed and being put back into the water we drink. That's just me.

Peace

It seems like a waste of 92 gallons of water to me for this process. Just imagine if millions of people decide to go this way.........that's a lot of water and how is this a green return to dust?

Before I go for the evening, one quick exercise my wife relayed to me. Now be fair and honest, no asking a relative or looking it up before you answer.

Who here knows where their grandfather is buried (assuming he's dead)?

Who here knows where their great-grandfather is buried?

Who here has actually been to the site of their great-grandfather's grave?

Who here can answer "Me!" to all 3 of those questions?

The point is, for the vast, vast, vast majority of all of you, no one is going to care to even know where you are buried, much less, actually go and visit the site. The half-life on "paying respects" is about one generation, unless you specifically belong to a culture that honors specific dead relatives on a regular basis (like Mexico or Japan).

If you want to leave your family and/or friends something that they will carry with them always, and honor you by, buy yourself a really nice, well-bound leather journal with gilt-edging to protect the pages. Then start writing letters to your future family in it, even the ones that aren't even born yet. Include your approximate location, and funny little details like the weather, or the price of milk and gas, etc. Tell them the concerns of the day, your thoughts on the political, economic, or religious situations of the time, the ideals of ethics or morality you have, or even just who you think will get picked in the new season's draft.

That will last many years, and almost always be passed to the most careful and respectful custodian in the family, that your words will be preserved and re-read for generations to come, because they are literally a time-capsule of information in an elegant, portable, durable form, that never becomes obsolete like a diskette.