A WaPo headline asks the question we were not asking. I'm not sure you'll want to know this, so look away while there is still a chance for you. It's surprising how far you need to read into the article before you find out what is actually involved:
In aquamation, a machine uses “a heated (sometimes pressurized) solution of water and strong alkali to dissolve tissues, yielding an effluent that can be disposed through municipal sewer systems, and brittle bone matter that can be dried, crushed, and returned to the decedent’s family,” Philip Olson, a technology ethicist at Virginia Tech, wrote in a 2014 paper.
The process takes three to four hours at a temperature of around 300 degrees Fahrenheit, though it can be longer if lower temperatures are used, according to Olson. By comparison, fire-based cremation takes around two hours at a temperature of 1,400 to 1,800 degrees.
In the United States, aquamation was first adopted in the 1990s by researchers looking for an inexpensive and safe way to discard the remains of animals used in experiments....
So most of him went into the sewer system?!
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79 comments:
Just turn off the heat and air conditioning and the rest of the electricity in Washington DC.
That will solve all of the problems that global warming is causing.
That's a much more appropriate "burial" practice for a Buddhist than a Christian bishop, who is supposed to be a witness to hope in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.
With labor shortages, a "cleaner" can be recruited for a tidy sum.
Isn't the greenest approach a burial without embalming?
Stew?
Oh, so it's kinda like sous vide?
Cool!
Soylent Green, the movie, was set in the year 2022... and Green day was Tuesday!
So here it comes! How does that grab ya!
Why not an ant farm?
I thought for a moment that aquamation might be the trendy new term for 'sleeping with the fishes,' but noooo.
I'm a bit surprised that the practice of some of the Plains Indians of platform burial hasn't garnered more adherents. Just watch out for strong winds.
Still plan on leaving my body to ignorance.
Ann Althouse said...
Isn't the greenest approach a burial without embalming?
No, that would be a Sky Burial like the Tibetans do.
CO2... Desmond Tutu-emitting cremation. With aquamation, there is at least a measure of consistency, if not in viability, but in process, how human remains are treated in darkness.
Isn't this 'dissolving' method a favorite method of serial killers on TV?
'So most of him went into the sewer system?!'
His critics would say that is appropriate.
'Isn't the greenest approach a burial without embalming?'
Probably better to leave the body in a nice tree and let the critters get to it.
Those Natives Americans knew stuff...
Ann Althouse said...
Isn't the greenest approach a burial without embalming?
Alternately, one could use a Tower of Silence like the Zoroastrians did, although I think they have stopped the practice in favor of cremation.
This is all BS. To suggest that eliminating cremations is going to make one bit of difference to global warming is nuts. It's as nutty as asserting what the power companies in Nebraska do will make one bit of difference. China is where the carbon dioxide is being generated.
What about vultures just pecking on the body? That's natural recycling.
Hey! Was the power that heated the body from a coal-fired, natgas or diesel generator? Or was it all wind and solar?
I am reminded of my father flushing the dead goldfish and us kids running to the sewer in the hopes of seeing it float by!
Wasn't Tutu a Christian bishop? What happened to the idea of a Christian burial in consecrated ground as an affirmation of the Christian belief in the ultimate resurrection of the dead?
Bernd Heinrich was an honest ecologist who was also a very good writer. A few years ago a dying friend asked if he could have a "green burial" at Heinrich's wild place in Maine. The result was 2013's Life Everlasting: The Animal Way of Death, a fascinating account of how living things get recycled--and what happened to his friend.
Dave Begley said...
Hey! Was the power that heated the body from a coal-fired, natgas or diesel generator? Or was it all wind and solar?
What I came to ask. He could be the most polluting dead person, killing the rest of us on his way out...
Just leave it out for the coyotes and raccoons!
Narr said...
Still plan on leaving my body to ignorance.
Thanks!
Not exactly the dignity due to the human body.
Or was it all wind and solar?
Yes, and how many birds passed through the gauntlet, how much land was occupied displacing African prides, for a Green burial? It doesn't seem that his carbon-riddled effluence was conscientiously sequestered.
Just leave it out for the coyotes and raccoons!
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle... or convert his fossils into oil and feed the single-cell organisms in some warm water pool. Think of the bacteria!
Like the Jews do, pine box, no embalming, do it quick. But I suppose you would have to hand dig the grave.
Lately it's occurred to me that the human body--indeed all terrestrial animal bodies--is mostly a bag of seawater enabling pursuit of food sources for and reproduction of "our" DNA and that of our symbiotic relations (AKA gut bacteria).
If the body is 90% water, sending that swirling down the drain seems more appropriate than burying it under 6 feet of soil.
"Buzzards gotta eat, just like worms." - Josie Wales
"In aquamation, a machine uses “a heated (sometimes pressurized) solution of water and strong alkali to dissolve tissues, yielding an effluent that can be disposed through municipal sewer systems"
Isn't this "The Cleaner" from "La Femme Nikita"?
Reagan: "Tutu? So-so."
What's wrong with the chipper (see "Fargo")? That seemed to work pretty well and quickly.
Tutu with his Jew hatred will be right at home in the sewer.
Are we allowed to speak honestly about Desmond Tutu or is he, like Obama, untouchable?
I already knew the answer before I asked the question but you knew that. We all know many things we aren't allowed to know much less say. The trick to survival in today's world is knowing what you aren't allowed to know without letting anyone know you know it.
Long live Big Brother! I love that old sonovabitch.
Isn't the greenest approach a burial without embalming?
Not by US standards, which typically require a coffin that is then enclosed in a concrete vault of some sort to trap those previously mentioned effluents.
I think a greener solution would be burial at sea, but I rather not give the environmentalist assistance in their crazy ideas, because they'll end up reading Tim in Vermont at 3:50pm.
Bummer.
Grandstanding much?
O, that this Tutu solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
--Hamlet, Act 1, Sc. 2
If we're really going to go down this road: What's the CO2 footprint of heating that water solution, and possibly pressurizing it; and (this is going to be the much bigger contributor) how much CO2 do you generate making one aquamation's worth of strong alkali?
I haven't worked it out, but I seriously doubt this route results in any less greenhouse gas emission when you add up everything.
"Tutu was ardent advocate of necklacing"
Oh just fuck off.
I wasn't a fan but why make that claim except to try to be the biggest asshole in the crowd?
What about vultures just pecking on the body? That's natural recycling.
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practiced by Parsis in India >>> cultural offensive appropriation?
A Parsi mourner arrives for a funeral service at a prayer hall in Mumbai. (AFP Photo) Ravenous vultures would devour the flesh of the body within an hour, leaving the bones to dry in the sun before being placed in a well, an efficient disposal system believed to purify the deceased.
Mistree says that leaving corpses open to the skies is the only option because Zoroastrians believe dead bodies to be impure.
"Zoroastrians are extremely eco-conscious so the body cannot be burnt because that's desecrating fire," he told AFP.
"It cannot be buried because that's polluting the earth and it cannot be drowned because that's sullying the waters.
"Those who want to take the cremation route can certainly do it. But from a religious point of view clearly it's wrong," Mistree added.
Ozymandias @ 4:33 for the win.
Piranha Solution
>Narayanan said...
Tutu was ardent advocate of necklacing <
That is complete bullshit and it would appear to be something that you just made up.
Tutu was famously quite the opposite of an 'ardent advocate of necklacing.'
tommyesq: I am reminded of the fish that leapt from our aquarium and was found on the living room carpet, dry and immobile. My toddler son was amazed when our toilet burial-at-sea resulted in a rehydrated, swimming, apparently unharmed fishy. I acted like I did this miracle every day, twice on Saturdays, as we netted the little fella and reinstalled him with his buddies in the tank.
Dane County has Natural Path Sanctuary. http://naturalpathsanctuary.org/rules-and-regulations/
Oh, so it's kinda like sous vide?
My thought too. An object lesson on why you don't skip the "vide" part of the process - you end up with soup.
It seems like an unnecessary waste of water resources. Would the carbon output be worse than releasing all that alkaline water that's been gooped up with liquefied people bits?
"So most of him went into the sewer system?!"
So, so appropriate for leftists.
Their policies continue to befoul us.
uses “a heated (sometimes pressurized) solution of water and strong alkali to dissolve tissues, yielding an effluent that can be disposed through municipal sewer systems
That's the way I usually do it! But i just do it in the motel bathtub... Takes a while; but makes things Much More Convenient not having a body to get rid of
nefarious acts* gilbar's public statement is that he, in no way, condones nefariousisms
So how was that water heated? And is the sewer system set up to handle that sort of waste?
Reminds me of the Toxic Waste Guy in RoboCop.
In honor of Winnie Mandela, they should have adorned the corpse with a petrol-filled rubber tire, and then set it ablaze. Hotcha!
Please don't bury me
Down in that cold, cold ground
No, I'd druther have 'em cut me up
And pass me all around
Throw my brain in a hurricane
And the blind can have my eyes
And the deaf can take both of my ears
If they don't mind the size
Give my feet to the footloose
Careless, fancy free
Give my knees to the needy
Don't pull that stuff on me
Hand me down my walking cane
It's a sin to tell a lie
Send my mouth way down south
And kiss my ass goodbye
Narayanan: "Tutu was ardent advocate of necklacing"
Ice Nine: "That is complete bullshit and it would appear to be something that you just made up.
Tutu was famously quite the opposite of an 'ardent advocate of necklacing.'"
Narayanan, do you have a link showing the alleged Tutu support for necklacing?
I too am no fan of Tutu overall (he danced far too close with the open marxist movements for my taste, though I might feel differently if I grew up black in South Africa, but I recall Tutu spoke out strongly against necklacing after the horrific murder of a woman (I had to look up the name again) named Maki Skosana in 1986. Tutu also said that if the necklacing continued he would no longer vocally support the South African liberation movement. This was a big deal at the time, coming in the middle of the Reagan administration.
The confusion might be that Tutu also supported Winnie Mandela who famously said some things that more than appeared to support necklacing which was one reason why Nelson Mandela kept his distance from her after his release from prison and throughout his later Presidency.
I think Tutu appreciated Winnie Mandela's support for the movement due to international name recognition (always important in garnering western support for political movements) but he seemed to draw a clear line at necklacing.
If there is something which contradicts that I'm all ears.
"In aquamation, a machine uses “a heated (sometimes pressurized) solution of water and strong alkali to dissolve tissues, yielding an effluent that can be disposed through municipal sewer systems"
Don’t waste the effluent, just make him into soap.
I prefer making him into soup like Michael Valentine Smith.
Howard, 4:42:
Oh gawd, not Piranha.
A bunch of labs I know of went over to it as the new, more modern, greener alternative to aqua regia, for when you have some residue that just won't dissolve. Many of them ended up regretting the switch, after dramatically demonstrating several lines on the incompatible substances list.
I had Winnie Mandela and Desmond Tutu mixed up :
"With our boxes of matches and our necklaces we will liberate this country."
The comment, at a rally in Johannesburg, signalled that Mrs Mandikizela-Mandela had endorsed the brutal method of "necklacing" - putting a tyre around suspected collaborators, dousing them with petrol, and burning them alive.
It caused shock around the world, and tainted the image of the ANC. The comment was condemned, including by South Africa's Nobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu (above).
Winnie Mandela in six quotes
Necklacing was a public lynching. Today, they like to Schiff... uh, shiv them in the back to paralyze their targets. Demos-cracy is aborted in darkness.
"Still plan on leaving my body to ignorance."
IIB: Thanks!
Be gentle.
Still plan on leaving my body to ignorance.
I've been on the verge of death several times in the past year, and finally got around to arranging to (live fast, die young and) leave my beautiful corpse to an outfit that trains emergency medical techs; they burn you when they're done.
The whole medical-industrial complex sure doesn't make the paperwork easy; I thought med schools and such were dying for dead bodies, so to speak, but I guess not.
Sewage to sewage, effluent to effluent...
THE BOOK OF POLITICAL PRAYER
Service for the Fashionable Dead
Fernandinande-
Good for you and I toast good health to you.
And keep u in my prayers2…
Aquamation: new business venture of choice for Witness Protection Program participants with specialized skillets.
What is the appeal of this? Given that there are many options, why one this gross? (The sewer?!)
I would love to see the numbers crunched. You don't just gather up NaOH or KOH from the dirt- you don't even mine it- they are produced from mined NaCl by electrolysis in water, which is energy intensive. Add in the need to heat to 300C under pressure, and I wonder whether this is better than a gas crematorium, and we aren't even discussing the strain strong alkali solutions put on modern sewer systems which must adjust down the pH of such solutions in water treatment plants.
what's wrong with worms? worms have to eat Too
Why do people insist on either filling their bodies with poisons, or burning their bodies up (with fire, or lye).
Worms have to eat Too!
Narayanan: "I had Winnie Mandela and Desmond Tutu mixed up :"
That makes sense.
Soup’s on!
Freema Hunt writes, "Aquamation: new business venture of choice for Witness Protection Program participants with specialized skillets."
Artificial Intelligence, it may not be very bright, but it is occasionally very witty.
"Artificial Intelligence, it may not be very bright, but it is occasionally very witty."
Ha! I hadn't even noticed it had done that until I read your comment. I will let it stand.
I hope '22 is better healthwise for you Fernandinande.
Oh heck. Here's to good health all 'round!
My wife has signed her carcass over to the apprentice sawboneses when it wears out. I haven't made an arrangement, but if I don't copy her I am disposed to cremation, which is at least cheap.
Best I think, worm, bird, fish, and bug food, as others suggest. Why delay the recycling by artificial means?
Winnie Mandela reminds me of Winnie the Pooh who reminds me of Yogi bear dancing in a tutu. I totally understand the mix-up.
description of this final solution remarkably like one adapted by cosmetics-testing lab in book The Monkey Handlers by Gordon Liddy.
A rival to burial: Dissolving bodies with lye
The process is called alkaline hydrolysis and was developed in this country 16 years ago to get rid of animal carcasses. It uses lye, 300-degree heat and 60 pounds of pressure per square inch to destroy bodies in big stainless-steel cylinders that are similar to pressure cookers.
fancier name this time
Tutu was an Anglican. I'm an Episcopalian, the US affiliate of the international Anglican Communion. Here, cremation is OK for Episcopalians; I never heard of it being banned for South African Anglicans. I'm told that it's also now allowed by the Roman Catholic Church.
Christians are taught that some day we will be resurrected into a new and perfected world. The Holy City will come down to Earth, and we will live with our God. So, it was once thought, our bodies shouldn't be destroyed after death; if they were, how could we be resurrected? That reasoning has I think been generally superceded. God gave us our bodies in the first place; when the resurrection comes, he'll give us new and better ones (I certainly don't want to go through Eternity with the body I've got now). I've made arrangements for my body to be cremated and the ashes stored in a suitable place in a church. There will be no internet connection there, so I won't be able to report on all this to you. But, come the Resurrection ....
Isn't the greenest approach a burial without embalming?
No, the greenest approach is Soylent Green.
Quite aside from the carbon footprint question, which we're asked to believe was Tutu's prime concern, there's the indignity and intrusion on the body. Why must hours and massive machinery be used to destroy the body? Maybe Tutu wanted to set an example in a place where there's insufficient land available for cemeteries. Maybe there's some fear of human beings (or other animals) tampering with graves.
"Oh, so it's kinda like sous vide?"
No, no, no! Sous vide is low-temp water-cooking, so your steaks can stay rare and yet get tender from very long cook times, turning, for example, chuck roast into prime beef. Then, a very hot and very quick sear on the barbee, and . . . tasty.
Sounds like getting Tutu'd is more of an InstantPot deal, since a pressure pot is necessary to get water up to 300 degrees.
Virtue-signaling body disposal for the best-known virtue-signaling cleric who forgot what virtue was after he'd won his own country's war.
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