These are my random musings. Hopefully they will be witty, insightful, and frequently updated.
The eco-friendly way to dispose of loved ones
Published on August 6, 2007 By singrdave In Pure Technology
Talk about killing two birds with one stone. With grave space at a premium and the planet allegedly undergoing climate change, it's apparently time to find a more eco-friendly way to dispose of corpses. The process, called resomation, allows people to dispose of loved ones in a more ecologically sound way. From the Post Chronicle:

A British company says it has an eco-friendly alternative to cremation: boiling bodies into dust. In the process, called resomation, the body is encased in a silk coffin and submerged in water mixed with potassium hydroxide. It is then heated to 302 degrees Fahrenheit, which rapidly turns it into a white dust, The Mail on Sunday reported.
The process is more eco-friendly than cremation, during which a body is heated to 2,192 degrees Fahrenheit, letting off harmful fumes such as mercury, according to Resomation, the firm selling the boiling process. Instead, the company says, it is essentially a much faster version of natural decomposition. Resomation also is affordable, costing about $600, the same as a cremation, the company said.
British authorities, who are encouraging alternatives to traditional burials for space reasons, have said they will consider any proposals. About a thousand bodies in the United States have already been processed with resomation.


Yikes and zoiks. I thought this would be a double-eyebrow-raiser and I was right. Boil your loved ones to dust.

Comments
on Aug 06, 2007
This article is worth clicking through.
on Aug 06, 2007
But can I be frozen in carbonite like Han Solo?
on Aug 06, 2007
I have a book called "Stiff" that talks about all sorts of odd things you can have done with your remains.

Again with the double eyebrow raise. There's a book of this stuff?
on Aug 06, 2007
This is interesting although it's something I don't know if I could do. It was hard enough having my mom cremated!



So the end results is the body is turned to dust, isn't the end result for cremation ashes? So basically the same thing? Yeah, I know the proecedure is different, but with the same end result, the question then would be is it worth it? It's a rhetorical question anyway, I read that it's safer for the environment. Just my brain over thinking!
on Aug 06, 2007
You seem a bit dismayed at this Dave, why? It sounds like a good alternative. If they remove your fillings first, no mercury in the dust, and voila, flower food.
on Aug 06, 2007
You seem a bit dismayed at this Dave, why? It sounds like a good alternative.

Not dismayed... just never thought about one's remains, that's all. I never thought the "boil-in-bag" method would be used on anything but frozen dinners.
on Aug 07, 2007
Shades of Motel Hell!
on Aug 07, 2007

I think I rather be boiled than burned.  Why does boiling sound worse than burning?

Hell, just through me in a bag and bury me.  Plant a tree on my stomach and let it use me as food.  Once I'm dead, I really don't care!

Our space problem is that "remains" remain with our current system.  We put a large cement box in the ground, then put a somewhat preserved corpse in a sealed wooden box that we then put in the sealed cement box.  To me, being boiled into dust seems a bit more "natural" than that.

on Aug 07, 2007
I'm cool with boiling. Sign me up.
on Oct 02, 2007
I know this article is old, but I have to make this joke.

This seems to give the term "teabagging" a whole new meaning.   

Thank you ladies and gentlemen.

~Zoo
on Oct 02, 2007
I have a book called "Stiff"


I have that too. My doctor recommended it, so I got it, and I love it. I never knew that human cadavers let such interesting lives!
on Oct 02, 2007
You can even be carbonized and pressed into a synthetic diamond now!


Wow, imagine that conversation:

"I love your ring"

"Thanks, it was my grandmother"

"It was your grandmother's ring?"

"No, it was my grandmother"