May 31, 2007
Morbid environmental question: what’s the most ecologically sound way to dispose of a dead body?
A few months ago Honky Tonk Dragon asked me what I want done with my remains if I were to perish. I thought about it and wasn’t too sure, saying “whatever is the most ecologically friendly method.” I’ve been thinking about it again, and the only thing i could find on the subject is this article which suggests that feeding the dead to animals is the best way to go. I’m not really sure how one would arrange for such a thing, but I’d be fine with that.
Are there any other methods out there?
Related posts (autogenerated):
This Wiki article on ’sky burial’ is pretty interesting. I’d like to think that my corpse was feeding animals other than worms!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial
Seems burial at sea to be the honest legal route. But it also seems I have little say in the matter as far as ‘mine’ goes.
Thanks for a cool site.
I’ve been thinking about this off and on, actually. I want to be buried in the ground, no preservatives, no box. It’s precisely the worms I want to feed, because the worms would then use me to feed the soil. I suppose my body dumped in the woods somewhere where the animals could get to it wouldn’t be so bad either. What the animals left would get subsumed into the humus, so plants and animals would share. That is, so long as nobody came around and found the body and picked up the remains and tried to give me a “proper, dignified burial.” So, probably, in the ground to avoid compllications.
And no tombstone. Plant a tree instead. A tree will eventually make use of everything, even the bones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Williams_(theologian)#Death.2C_interment.2C_and_memorials
Don’t know what happened with that link. Anyway, the roots from a tree planted near Roger Williams’ grave busted through his pine box, then busted through his skull, and eventually, the root system formed the shape of his skeleton and that of his wife.
Can I eat your dead body?
I suppose that depends on whether you’re ecologically friendly.
I’m considering giving a friend my skull, though two want it. Only one of them, however, has offered and shared some animal bone to snort.