Composting the dead

 

Have you written your will? What is going to happen to your corpse when you die?

There are the professional morticians that can drain you, puff you up, make you look really good, even put you in some fine fashion and let the family and friends’ parade by to view the remains. They even have this cool stretch station wagon to put the box in and will slowly transport you to a hole in the ground. It is all very solemn and has a high cost to take up another plot of sacred ground. This has been done for centuries.

You could have yourself freeze dried in a cylinder waiting for a cure to death so you can be thawed out and recovered. You better be rich.

There is an option to cremate the cadaver to dust and put in a can. Takes up less space but not as spectacular as the Indian fire pyres or the Viking burning boats. May cause some pollution but ashes-to-ashes.

If six feet under isn’t your preference, there are storage houses above ground called mausoleums that you can be observed as a powerful or important or rich. This could be a one off, like the pyramids or a multi-housing with other bodies. They may be family or strangers.

Like most offers we pay for, you can be as elaborate or plain as you wish if you plan it before the last breath. Once you are out of site, no one will notice until the archeologist come by to dig you up as a scientific study of history.

Science will also take your carcass straight off the slab, to divide and sliced and diced and stored in jars for teaching assignments or experiments. Don’t cost nothing. Your final resting place may be a land fill or a pit in the ground but there will not be a headstone.

If left alone on the ground the body will decompose. 24-72 hours after death — the internal organs decompose. 3-5 days after death — the body starts to bloat and blood-containing foam leaks from the mouth and nose. 8-10 days after death — the body turns from green to red as the blood decomposes and the organs in the abdomen accumulate gas.

It stinks.

In a temperate climate, it usually requires three weeks to several years for a body to completely decompose into a skeleton, depending on factors such as temperature, humidity, presence of insects, and submergence in a substrate such as water.

Another alternative method of disposing the leftover shell is to compost.

The entire human composting process generally takes between eight to twelve weeks. The staff will communicate timing and key moments throughout the process. Each body spends about five to seven weeks in a Recompose vessel, then the soil is transferred to an aerated bin to cure for an additional three to five weeks. The cost is around $7,000 (comparable to a traditional funeral).

You chose the method of bodily disposal and discuss with your family so there are no surprises.