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  • From: trevor william johnson <john2116@msu.edu>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] composting people
  • Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 15:23:04 -0400

this thread is from may 28 2008 but i didn't quite get my questions answered. I researched the site from toby below and burial is not what im talking about. CAFOS do it with their cows and other dead livestock. They cut open their chest, put in a bunch of straw (to get the C:N ratio correct) and compost them back into soil. I am curious what the implications of doing this with people besides the "not to my dad/mother/son etc" reaction. What about cycling heavy metals, parasites and other nasties. i got the idea from reading the humanure handbook. if we can do it with our poo cant we do it with our bodies after they are done?

trevor
ferndale MI
On May 28, 2008, at 8:02 PM, Toby Hemenway wrote:

A friend of mine, Cynthia Beal, runs the Natural Burial Company, with
compostable caskets and a lot of information on natural burial.
http://www.naturalburialcompany.com/

She told me that here in Oregon, and many other places, the law states
that once land is a cemetery, it must remain a cemetery forever. That
has interesting possibilities for land preservation. So she's working on
setting up a string of cemeteries as greenbelts, wildlife corridors,
and, ideally, permaculture landscapes. That could reduce the problem of
Pc sites getting sold and destroyed.

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com



Dick Pierce wrote:
I believe the concept of human composting is referred to in the trade as
"Natural Burial" an there is a kindly and somewhat informative website at
http://www.naturalburial.coop. I browsed it briefly and noted 2 sites in ME.
These still retain the cemetary concept; I didn't read far enough to see if
there were services that would bury a person on their property - hill-top,
orchard, etc.,. The later is my wish - I'd like apples or corn to grow or
feed grass-fed beef or chickens with my remains - or have the Lions come and
lay down on my grave as with Robert Finch-Hadden in "Out of Africa".

The above is slightly more acceptable to my family than the alternative
available here - a farmer friend with a large, wind-row compost area just
adds a dead cow/sheep to the wind-row, covers it with 8-10' of leaves/wood
chips and "compost happens." Either method is acceptable to me. - Ashes to
ashes, dust to dust, soil to soil.


On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 3:05 AM, <yarrow@sfo.com> wrote:


At 4:50 PM -0400 5/26/08, trevor william johnson wrote:

also in jenkins humanure handbook he says that we have been using
composting to turn dead animals into compost. he does not say
anything about composting humans though. i imagine the process is
the same. does anyone out there know anything of this practice? i ...

Green burials? I've heard of several around the world, AFAIK without
the embalming and concrete vaults and decorator coffins, where the
land is managed as a nature preserve.

As for composting people specifically, several years ago I heard
someone from North Carolina on the radio talking about composting
people. I don't recall his name (or where he got his research
subjects).
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