Toribash
Original Post
Composting the dead
Hi, doing my masters in Architecture, came across a concept put forward by an architect that talks about composting the dead as a means of rejuvenating poor soil conditions, or even for urban farming; while also answering the question of what we do with our dead because cremation is very environmentally unfriendly and a cemetary is a wholly impractical way of dealing with the issue (in terms of land use and the knock on effects therein). There are also mushrooms that eat the body and turn it into oxygen, which is pretty huge, if the question were about this method would your answer change?
In the book she details that urine would speed up the process, but doesn't add this to the composting mix as it could be seen as disrespectful.
I agree that it could be seen as such but I'm curious as to how people generally feel about the idea.
The few people I've spoken to about the idea have been very pragmatic about it. "I'm dead, doesn't matter."
Curious to see what the different attitudes to this are.

Thank you thanks.

Poll below:
https://strawpoll.com/6qppj1d53
Last edited by Erth; Oct 7, 2020 at 07:09 AM. Reason: spelling and grammar, it's late and i'm tired
She/They

Yeah, I only don't like erthtkv2 because of the mod's name. Make it "tkv2," and the mod will instantly become more popular. This is a valid reason as the name of the mod is still an important feature that no one seems to have yet discussed.
Well I am definitely not doing anything useful while alive, might as well help as much as I can while I am dead.
part of the uri-nation rateyourmusic
you clean your ears with a toothpick while listening to explosive diarrhea blood rectum metal
I would not mind personally, but that kind of decision would absolutely depend on how my next of kin would feel also.
I doubt my mother would be ok with it, since her side of the family has burial traditions involved that have been going on long enough that it's more meaningful than just making a choice.
Pretty sure my father would be keen though. The idea of him being able to 'garden' and such post-bucket-punt would probably be appealing to him. And I doubt he's keen on being the vineyard scarecrow in 30 years.
Well for starters I personally believe that acclimating this idea to our society is one of the last things my (American) leaders care about as they are too busy destroying their own country for votes. I wouldn't mind being composted, i'd love to be put in the garden and have some thorns come out me
Actually, I feel as though promoting this idea could benefit society in the long run. I think most people will be supportive of the idea of being composted after death (except for a few folks who will certainly be against the idea). I don't really see the problem with being composted aside from family traditions, unless I'm missing something that other people see as potential problems. I would love to see the opinion of somebody who does not support this, so I could get a clearer view on why this could be a bad idea.
part of the uri-nation rateyourmusic
you clean your ears with a toothpick while listening to explosive diarrhea blood rectum metal
This is a very hard question to answer for me.

I gave it not a second thought in my Frostpunk playthrough.
I enacted the Organic Fertiliser law which lets you use bodies you kept in a < -30°C 'stockpile' in your settlement as fertiliser for food production buildings as a cooldown ability.
But in real life it is not such a simple answer for me.
Great game, by the way.

Right now, I don't want to ever be dead.
If I do, ideally I'd want my body to be preserved until a future generation has the technology to revive me.
This is my wish, and it is an unrealistic one.

The logical part of me sees this as a no-brainer, same with donating your body to science after death.
I just don't think people are willing to treat their relatives' corpses like horse manure. Maybe I have the wrong image in mind.
My father always jokes that we should just throw his body in a ditch to save on funeral costs, my mother is sternly against it.

The places that the dead rest hold a lot of significance for some mourners.
My grandfather died in 2011 and my mother visits the place his ash was scattered every year.

I think there would also be some kickback on the resulting crops of the bodies, whether it be superstition or people not wanting to eat corpse potatoes.

The plan sounds good logically, but I think there are too many emotional objections for it to ever be implemented on a large scale.
Maybe I'm wrong and there are millions of volunteers with open-minded families.

Is this strictly necessary for the survival of our species, or just a cost-effective farming strategy?
alright guy
Originally Posted by rifle View Post
Well I am definitely not doing anything useful while alive, might as well help as much as I can while I am dead.

Is there anything that you feel would change your mind? I'm not asking for specifics, just hypothetically, can you imagine any scenario in which you *wouldn't* be with something being done to your body, while retaining the benefits for the environment?

Originally Posted by Icky View Post
I would not mind personally, but that kind of decision would absolutely depend on how my next of kin would feel also.
I doubt my mother would be ok with it, since her side of the family has burial traditions involved that have been going on long enough that it's more meaningful than just making a choice.
Pretty sure my father would be keen though. The idea of him being able to 'garden' and such post-bucket-punt would probably be appealing to him. And I doubt he's keen on being the vineyard scarecrow in 30 years.

Yeah, that's where the issues tend to lie - in the fact that it's one persons body isn't just a sensitive issue for that person, it's for the people close to them aswell.
Do you envisage any path of conversation that would convince your mum to allow you/your father's body to be eaten by shrooms or mulched? Do you feel there would be any way to convince her, if you were given specific numbers/facts with regards to the environment?

Originally Posted by McFarbo View Post
Well for starters I personally believe that acclimating this idea to our society is one of the last things my (American) leaders care about as they are too busy destroying their own country for votes. I wouldn't mind being composted, i'd love to be put in the garden and have some thorns come out me

Oh yeah, absolutely. When people think of helping the environment, "burying the dead" is never something that springs to mind, even for people heavily involved in activism.
It's just that it's much more relevant to my field of study, and so advancements that *can* be made should be made. Do you think the people you know would be as ok with the idea as you are? Is it something you could see ever coming more into the mainstream if it was successfully implemented somewhere else?

Originally Posted by rifle View Post
Actually, I feel as though promoting this idea could benefit society in the long run. I think most people will be supportive of the idea of being composted after death (except for a few folks who will certainly be against the idea). I don't really see the problem with being composted aside from family traditions, unless I'm missing something that other people see as potential problems. I would love to see the opinion of somebody who does not support this, so I could get a clearer view on why this could be a bad idea.

Likewise. A lot of the people who have said "nah it's not for me" seem to come from a stance of religion, but even then it's been from people saying "I don't think my parents would be cool with this".

Originally Posted by Dare View Post
I personally wouldn't mind being composted, but I also wouldn't mind being used for science. I feel like being valuable after death is a good idea. They're are such limited amount of people that actually donate there bodies for the advancement of the human race. However, the world has a tradition of cremating or burying after death and I feel like many people do not want to break that tradition even though other options are more valuable to us humans.

Absolutely, using your body for science/organ donation should probably come as a priority, but that still more often than not leaves *bits* afterwards. That can still be used in some helpful way, they're not mutually exclusive.
You mention tradition of cremation, which actually tees up some precedent I've been looking at.
Japan has a culture whereby something like 99% of all dead are cremated, which is obviously not ideal as it's awful for the environment, but it leaves the issue of what to do with the ashes. In Shinjuku there's a tower that represents the dead with a buddha statue and incorporates modern technology to create a calm environment that allows people to pay their respects.
Articles here: https://www.vice.com/en/article/9a3a...tic-cemeteries

pictures



It DOES solve the issues of a) space within a city to bury the dead. Cemeteries just aren't practical. and b) at least in my view, remains a respectful environment that allows people to adequately honour their dead.
If you could combine this with a more environmentally friendly way to deal with the corpse, you've got yourselves the future of burying dudes.

Originally Posted by fudgiebalz View Post
This is a very hard question to answer for me.

I gave it not a second thought in my Frostpunk playthrough.
I enacted the Organic Fertiliser law which lets you use bodies you kept in a < -30°C 'stockpile' in your settlement as fertiliser for food production buildings as a cooldown ability.
But in real life it is not such a simple answer for me.
Great game, by the way.

Right now, I don't want to ever be dead.
If I do, ideally I'd want my body to be preserved until a future generation has the technology to revive me.
This is my wish, and it is an unrealistic one.

The logical part of me sees this as a no-brainer, same with donating your body to science after death.
I just don't think people are willing to treat their relatives' corpses like horse manure. Maybe I have the wrong image in mind.
My father always jokes that we should just throw his body in a ditch to save on funeral costs, my mother is sternly against it.

The places that the dead rest hold a lot of significance for some mourners.
My grandfather died in 2011 and my mother visits the place his ash was scattered every year.

I think there would also be some kickback on the resulting crops of the bodies, whether it be superstition or people not wanting to eat corpse potatoes.

The plan sounds good logically, but I think there are too many emotional objections for it to ever be implemented on a large scale.
Maybe I'm wrong and there are millions of volunteers with open-minded families.

Is this strictly necessary for the survival of our species, or just a cost-effective farming strategy?

That's an interesting point you bring up, how do people react to this in games.
When I played Outer Worlds I wasn't super ok with the idea, but I'm not advocating the same thing.

I just don't think people are willing to treat their relatives' corpses like horse manure. Maybe I have the wrong image in mind.

It's not a totally inaccurate way of wording it, unfortunately, however the process would strive to be as respectful as possible. It's about finding the line. Like I mentioned in the OP, urine has the potential to increase efficiency but the researcher refuses to use it on human corpses due to sentiment.

I think there would also be some kickback on the resulting crops of the bodies, whether it be superstition or people not wanting to eat corpse potatoes.

While I see your point, in Europe, dead people are almost literally everywhere. I'd wager nigh on all crops are in some way using dead-guy material. But I see your point with regards to baseless superstition forming around the products.
Having said all that, it can just be used to increase soil quality in order to build on the land. Lots of old industries had a tendency to dump chemicals in nearby rivers or banks, which wrecks soil quality, and these days there are standards that mean you have to deal with that before building on the land. It could simply be used as replacement soil/a way to heal the soil as a means to just legally use the land again.

The plan sounds good logically, but I think there are too many emotional objections for it to ever be implemented on a large scale.
Maybe I'm wrong and there are millions of volunteers with open-minded families.

Yeah, this is what I'm exploring. In part this research comes from a place where I'm looking at societal reaction to technologies.
This, in my mind, is the single most extreme thing I can think of in terms of existing social taboo vs. environmental benefit, which makes it an interesting path of study.

Is this strictly necessary for the survival of our species, or just a cost-effective farming strategy?

Despite it not currently being a requirement or anything, at a certain point we're going to have to address it. Cemeteries get full, and you can't spare the land in cities. The sooner it's addressed the sooner you can implement the benefits. Or rather, the sooner you address the social taboos surrounding it, the sooner you can start making the changes necessary for the human race to continue living as we currently do.
Urban farms are also an idea that is thrown around, primarily in architectural circles. They have a lot of pros and cons, and it's not a debate I'm particularly keyed into as of yet. This kind of composting would be a much more environmentally friendly way of doing it, even if you only think about it in terms of transportation.

Thanks for your engagement, it's been interesting to hear people's opinions on this. If you're staunchly against the idea, but don't feel like posting in the thread, please dm me in discord or something as I'd like to hear the other side of the argument.
Last edited by Erth; Oct 9, 2020 at 04:16 PM.
She/They

Yeah, I only don't like erthtkv2 because of the mod's name. Make it "tkv2," and the mod will instantly become more popular. This is a valid reason as the name of the mod is still an important feature that no one seems to have yet discussed.
Originally Posted by Erth
In part this research comes from a place where I'm looking at societal reaction to technologies.This, in my mind, is the single most extreme thing I can think of in terms of existing social taboo vs. environmental benefit, which makes it an interesting path of study... Despite it not currently being a requirement or anything, at a certain point we're going to have to address it. Cemeteries get full, and you can't spare the land in cities. The sooner it's addressed the sooner you can implement the benefits. Or rather, the sooner you address the social taboos surrounding it, the sooner you can start making the changes necessary for the human race to continue living as we currently do.

I would think the more practical and generally acceptable thing would be, instead of us getting comfortable with this taboo, we would instead develop 'non-taboo' tech that makes the cremation process (or just human corpse processing in general) greener. Quick google tells me this is already being looked into - Aquamation (water cremation) does a 10x better job at not impacting the environment (versus typical cremation), and the resulting liquid can also be used as fertilizer. For some reason, aquamation hits me less viscerally than corpse composting - I'm more immedietely comfortable with the former. Aside from aquamation, there's other methods, including just making the current cremation process less environmentally damaging.

Recomposting for soil rejuvination definitely sounds like an elegant idea (even solves two problems at once), but it's on-the-nose. Smells crappy. Too much to get past. That's not to say that we oughn't try and develop ways to derive something positive from one's death, and I wouldn't begrudge anyone who'd try this (Washington State, this year, legalized a form of limited recomposting). I just don't see it catching on. I've my faith in our ever-increasing rate of technological development getting us through this (excepting some civilizational collapse that sets us back hundreds of years).
Last edited by Ele; Oct 10, 2020 at 01:10 AM.
Originally Posted by Erth View Post

Yeah, that's where the issues tend to lie - in the fact that it's one persons body isn't just a sensitive issue for that person, it's for the people close to them aswell.
Do you envisage any path of conversation that would convince your mum to allow you/your father's body to be eaten by shrooms or mulched? Do you feel there would be any way to convince her, if you were given specific numbers/facts with regards to the environment?


Highly unlikely.
My mother would want to be together with my father in some aspect, be it via grave/plot or released to the winds together. Mixing ashes and splitting might be a possible suggestion, but I doubt anyone would be ok with half of their body being composted and half cremated.

There might be people who could be keen on going full new-egypt with it and going for composting the body with organs cremation /buried or some other set up. But that'd be way too wild for either of them.

I havent considered any of my choices on how I'd want to be dealt with after death. Im an organ donor but thats about as far as its gone in terms actual decisions made and implemented.
Primarily I am in favor of your idea, as it is my desire not to be cremated once I'm dead, so that plants and fungi can feed on me as I once fed on them.


However, it's always been a desire of mine to donate my body to science, but since that's not really an option anymore, I think I'll just donate my corpse to a hydraulic press youtube channel instead.