How do you all feel about this? Though many religions believe that when a person dies their soul leaves their body. And when buried, the body naturally decomposes...still, is this not too disturbing?
Composting Human Bodies for Food Crops
Composting Human Bodies for Food Crops | Forum
Jstnona
Mar 23 '15
I find this repulsive. Agree with you Crystal, about the death rituals. I want to be cremated also.
After reading that article, I shall never buy a sack of compost again. Did not realize it was made from human waste....imagine the toxins and heavy metals that are excreted into human waste?
Thankfully, my earthworms are very active in their bins, producing castings/compost.
After reading that article, I shall never buy a sack of compost again. Did not realize it was made from human waste....imagine the toxins and heavy metals that are excreted into human waste?
Thankfully, my earthworms are very active in their bins, producing castings/compost.
The Forum post is edited by Jstnona Mar 23 '15
Moderator billyHill
Mar 23 '15
Nona, I gotta ask, what kind of mailing list(s) are you on to find these types of things?????
I'm in the same boat as you and Crystal, even a step further donating my body to medical science and any parts they may find useful for transplant or other medical purposes. I figure I won't need them anymore, so if it will help someone else, by all means let them try to help !!!
I made it about halfway through the article, then couldn't take any more. I haven't eaten yet and don't want to puke up my dinner before eating it.... or worse lose my appetite.
I used to live in farm country, and every winter / spring the "honey wagons" would fertilize the fields with either chicken or cattle dung. While I realize as humans we eat meat, and chickens / cattle don't, I really can't see that much difference between the human waste and animal waste being fertilizer.
The grass always grew faster and greener over the drain field of the septic tank... that says something, doesn't it??
I'm in the same boat as you and Crystal, even a step further donating my body to medical science and any parts they may find useful for transplant or other medical purposes. I figure I won't need them anymore, so if it will help someone else, by all means let them try to help !!!
I made it about halfway through the article, then couldn't take any more. I haven't eaten yet and don't want to puke up my dinner before eating it.... or worse lose my appetite.
I used to live in farm country, and every winter / spring the "honey wagons" would fertilize the fields with either chicken or cattle dung. While I realize as humans we eat meat, and chickens / cattle don't, I really can't see that much difference between the human waste and animal waste being fertilizer.
The grass always grew faster and greener over the drain field of the septic tank... that says something, doesn't it??
Jstnona
Mar 23 '15
No mailing lists, Billy. Just inquisitive. Read something, leads me into something else or the need to google it. That is how I found this one.
I understand your thoughts about animal manure...but, somehow I cannot equate it with human waste, with all the junk we eat, medications we take, ect.
I understand your thoughts about animal manure...but, somehow I cannot equate it with human waste, with all the junk we eat, medications we take, ect.
Moderator spectrumAU
Mar 23 '15
For years people have been cremated and their ashes have been sprinkled over a rose garden.
What's the difference? Those roses usually grow very well.
Once my soul moves on I have no use for this bod, if it or any part of it can be of use that's fine by me. 
Jstnona
Mar 23 '15
Although I think the practice of burying cremated ashes and planting a tree over them....as a memorial to a loved one...is beautiful. As is donating body parts, or your body for medical research.
Personally I find being used for compost repulsive and demeaning. Envision the farmers taking bodies from funeral homes, as in the bodies being taken from Hitler's gas chambers, and dumped in mass graves. Or, "Soylent Green".
Just as I always found a newly opened crematorium's owners picking up bodies in a station wagon, vs a hearse, demeaning. Compounded by the fact that he wore bib overalls and a plaid flannel shirt and his wife looked like she just came out of the kitchen. Bothers me to this day. Felt it was disrespectful and demeaning and offensive to the loved ones. It truly embarrassed me. For, I would have been offended if it were my deceased family member they were picking up. Always had a sick thought of them using the heat from the crematorium to power a country BBQ place. (It was in a very rural area)
Everyone has different views on life and death, though. No right or wrong...just different.
Personally I find being used for compost repulsive and demeaning. Envision the farmers taking bodies from funeral homes, as in the bodies being taken from Hitler's gas chambers, and dumped in mass graves. Or, "Soylent Green".
Just as I always found a newly opened crematorium's owners picking up bodies in a station wagon, vs a hearse, demeaning. Compounded by the fact that he wore bib overalls and a plaid flannel shirt and his wife looked like she just came out of the kitchen. Bothers me to this day. Felt it was disrespectful and demeaning and offensive to the loved ones. It truly embarrassed me. For, I would have been offended if it were my deceased family member they were picking up. Always had a sick thought of them using the heat from the crematorium to power a country BBQ place. (It was in a very rural area)
Everyone has different views on life and death, though. No right or wrong...just different.
Jstnona
Mar 24 '15
The human waste has to come from sewage plants, does it not? Thanks Wind, good info about fertilizers, I always used compost tea and a tea I made from fish trimings. Very rarely used fertilizers, other than plant starters.On the other hand, animals (and humans are nothing else in that context) should never be used to make compost. The higher level in the food chain you are, the more toxic materials you aggregate. Because of this compost should always be made from plant materials. Even if the idea that the compost you can by in a store is made from waste is not that nice, it is still safe. (I don't know if they add that dirt in your countries, so better look that the compost does not contain sewage sludge!!! That stuff is realy something you don't want in the soil your vegetables did grow in!)
If you now assume it would be more safe or less ugly to use mineral fertilizers, I have to disappoint you. They are pretty safe as long as you only take nitrogen fertilizers. The mixed N,P,K- fertilizers you can buy at a store do often contain more heavy metals than the compost you are talking about here. ... and you will like to know that phosphorous- fertilizers contain small amounts of uranium, which is usually contained in the rocks they are made from.
The Forum post is edited by Jstnona Mar 24 '15
Jstnona
Mar 25 '15
Wind, no only the abstract. It sounds like your country regulates it better than here. I have bought the compost sacks here. I always found the content strange. Not my 1st choice. The bags got hot, so I knew that it was not soil, but looked like slimy dark soil. No odor. Definitely did not have wood chips or any other additives. The label did not give any clue to the composition. Only organic compost LOL
The Forum post is edited by Jstnona Mar 25 '15
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Jstnona
Mar 25 '15
LOL, Wind, I realize it should get hot, just meant that it looked like dark soil, but could tell it was not because it was hot and slimy.
Willi
Feb 6 '18
Hmm, did you not leave the subject for something less controversial ? The subject line clearly speaks of Human Bodies, not waste. This would suggest something like "Soylent Green", which was made from recycled Human bodies (according to the movie Escape From New York). Of course, in days of old, graveyards still allowed the bodies to decompose naturally, eventially turning into fertilizer for the plants above and thus remaining in the naturalcarbon cycle. To me cremation causes too much pollution and is energy inefficient. The "ashes" are essentially mainly non-combustible chalk from the bones. Almost all carbon was burned into carbondioxide (CO2), and as such is a pollutant according to some environmentalists. Well, one cannot have it both ways...
Moderator spectrumAU
Apr 12 '18
You're right when put like that it is gross. But,
a lot of people want their ashes spread on a garden.
Isn't that compost?
Willi
Sep 22 '18
Actually ashes are far from being compost.ashes are mainly minerals and are not rich in the carbon-based mcompounds, that typify compost.
In the eatky middle ages it was common to create agricultural land by burnkng forests. Tbr ash from the trees was not a suitable fertiliser,and fields became fallow after only a few years, and more forests had to be burned. Also the phosphates, an important ingredient of fertilizers was destroyed by burning.
