Washington state lawmakers approve human corpse composting

https://qz.com/1625446/washington-state-lawmakers-just-approved-human-corpse-composting/

by prostoalex • 7 years ago

172 165 7 years ago

leereeves• 7 years ago

I'd probably choose this method of entering eternity if it was available where I live, but still I wonder: is this safe?

Edit: Ok, I better clarify, I was thinking of the risk of infectious diseases and other toxins to the people still alive.

grepthisab• 7 years ago

Seems like you have little to lose. You're not going to die again, after all.

GiorgioG• 7 years ago

As long as you're completely dead, it's definitely safe for you =)

For everything else that lives and dies on this planet, it's sort of the natural order of things.

rplst8• 7 years ago

Yeah, I feel like a lot of religious practices (burial being one of them) originated from things that were a detriment to society or seen as "unclean" and that caused infection, diseases, or maybe just a bad stench. I wonder if long ago our ancestors learned a lesson about this that they codified in religion, but forgot the "why" part and now we are just going to repeat history.

michaelcampbell• 7 years ago

I wonder if long ago our ancestors learned a lesson about this that they codified in religion, but forgot the "why" part and now we are just going to repeat history.

That, combined with the desire but not the means to explain things they didn't understand, is religion in a nutshell.

torpfactory• 7 years ago

Our ancestors didn't have microbiology. As long as we pay attention to the science, we won't be repeating history.

ncallaway2• 7 years ago

Okay, but the same applies to eating pork.

As long as we actually understand the underlying reasons why these practices were forbidden, and have addressed them, then it's okay to eat pork.

These issues have been studied, and composting is a pretty safe form of disposal as long as it's done properly.

Fomite4• 7 years ago

It's very tempting to tell "just so" stories like this, but from the perspective of an infectious disease epidemiologist, cultural and religious practices, including burials, aren't consistently "good" from a disease standpoint. It's about 50/50 whether it helps or hurts.

dbingham• 7 years ago

Aerobic composting done right largely sterilizes the compost pile. It kills most harmful bacteria (and in the case of garden compost, weed seeds) because the pile heats to a really high temperature (140F+).

shawnz• 7 years ago

What about prions? Would they be eliminated by this method?

temp99990• 7 years ago

This is interesting though I remember seeing a ted talk on covering the corpse in fungi to detoxify the corpse while composting because human bodies are generally highly toxic...

i_am_nomad• 7 years ago

I’m skeptical of this claim, that human bodies are “highly toxic.” What does that mean, exactly - what toxins are we talking about?

emersonrsantos• 7 years ago

Gastric acid, just to name one.

jniedrauer• 7 years ago

It's certainly true of embalmed bodies. Hopefully we wouldn't be composting those though.

cobbzilla3• 7 years ago

Imagine you try the zombie thing and eat a lot of dead flesh. You would get really sick and maybe die.

I don't know the chemical names offhand, but suffice to say the decomposition process has plenty of nasty byproducts, not to mention whatever might have been in the intestinal tract (eating feces == bad).

cobbzilla3• 7 years ago

iirc you can use lime (powdered limestone, not the fruit) to accelerate the decomposition process while simultaneously detoxing. someone correct me if I've got this wrong.

lelf• 7 years ago

Discussed 18 days ago btw, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19831087

elektor• 7 years ago

Alkaline hydrolysis is another preferable option to ground burial. Much more environmentally friendly and allows large plots of land to be used for the living.

jxcl• 7 years ago

  If I should die before I wake,
  All my bone and sinew take
  Put me in the compost pile
  To decompose me for a while.

  Worms, water, sun will have their way,
  Returning me to common clay
  All that I am will feed the trees
  And little fishes in the seas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOJRiCHhciY

egberts• 7 years ago

A nice tribute to Earth Day for the cofounder had experimented with human corpse composting with his murdered girlfriend.

mogadsheu• 7 years ago

While I understand the merit of the energy efficiency implications mentioned in the article, I actually disagree with this method on grounds of the potential spread/development of infectious disease.

The vast majority of cultures have rites for taking care of the dead in a tidy manner. This is partly out of respect and partly for cleanliness purposes. Corpses that aren’t embalmed or cremated are hotbeds for disease. Having them naturally degrade seems like a great way for new human-specific evolutions in disease to grow and spread.

lostapathy• 7 years ago

You're not up to date on the rules.

Per the FTC, embalming is not required for burial in any state. A lot of cemeteries require it, but Google "green burial" for more info on places that don't.

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0300-ftc-funeral-rule

giarc2• 7 years ago

Corpses that aren’t embalmed or cremated are hotbeds for disease.

Not really. Corpses don't really gain the ability to transmit diseases if the disease wasn't already there. For those with infectious diseases that are of concern for human to human transmission, many locations have laws already in place. In Alberta, my province, we refer to these as Schedule 1 and Schedule 2 diseases and have public health law regarding handling of the deceased that fall into these categories [1].

1 - http://www.qp.alberta.ca/documents/Regs/2008_135.pdf

jetrink• 7 years ago

They aren't just tossing the bodies on a compost pile. It's a very specific process that involves a lot of oxygen and high temperatures (60C-70C). Pathogens do not survive if it's done properly.

bilbo0s• 7 years ago

if it's done properly...

And this is the reason that composting never took hold in antiquity. For the ancients, who may not have had as much scientific knowledge, burial and cremation could be done improperly, and still provide a sanitary means of disposal of the deceased. You try to compost the deceased in an ancient society lacking the proper techniques, facilities, and medical care, and I'd imagine you'd just be bringing a whole world of problems down on your village or town.

Cyph0n• 7 years ago

Embalming is forbidden in Islam. Corpses are buried directly after ritual cleaning.

But I tend to agree that composting is a bit... strange.

walrus01• 7 years ago

The western cultural expectation of spending a lot of money on embalming, then dressing the dead in fancy expensive clothing and putting them in a $5000 ornate wood coffin which will immediately go into the ground to rot is perverse. It has created economic incentives on the part of funeral services corporations to extract as much money from a grieving family as possible.

sneak2• 7 years ago

What is the difference between “composting” and “buried directly without preservative”? I am fairly certain it amounts to much the same thing.

MagicPropmaker• 7 years ago

Jewish law prohibits embalming, too. And tradition calls for a plain casket, usually pine, unlined, and with no metal parts (wooden pegs hold it together.)

LinuxBender2• 7 years ago

If I can't afford to be frozen, then I would like to be sealed in clear epoxy with LED lights and put on display. That should be quite sanitary while not emitting much Co2.

zimpenfish• 7 years ago

I would like to be sealed in clear epoxy

According to [1], taking a 40yr old male, the body would be 180cm x 25cm x 70cm (805, 236, 506+378 extrapolated). You'd probably want at least 2.5cm of epoxy border giving you 185cm x 30cm x 75cm or 0.42m^3. Assuming the body takes up about 0.067m^3[2], you're left with 0.35m^3 or 21350in^3. [3] says multiply that by 0.0163 to get 350 litres which then translates to kg of resin. Using GlassCast 50, at 32kg for £450 inc vat, you'd be looking at ~£4900.

(you could also just paint over a few thin layers instead but it wouldn't look as impressive.)

(also you'd need to dry the body out first because the resin would react badly with the moisture.)

[1] https://msis.jsc.nasa.gov/sections/section03.htm [2] https://www.researchgate.net/post/Volume_of_average_human_bo... [3] https://www.easycomposites.co.uk/#!/resin-gel-silicone-adhes...

NeedMoreTea3• 7 years ago

Corpses that aren’t embalmed or cremated are hotbeds for disease

You're really going to have to provide a citation for that.

On our way to choosing a natural eco-friendly burial, we looked at quite a few locations. There was one common feature - none allowed embalming. Nor is there any legal requirement for embalming, and very few (regular) burial grounds require it. It's a convenience for undertakers (and a nice way to bump the price implying it's an expected procedure).

It seems very unlikely that would be the case if your assertion were true.

jalk• 7 years ago

Jessica Mitford book "The American Way of Death" from 1963 is describe here https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/death/fond-farewells She documented the undertakers bumping up the prices as you describe (to put it mildly).

I don't however know if the undertaker lobby has since managed to get embalmment mandatory / carteling with the graveyards

themagician2• 7 years ago

In most big cities people just throw their dead pets in the trash. Morbid, but true. I don't see why human bodies would really be all that different.

lugg• 7 years ago

I don't know why but I laughed too hard at the thought of someone dumping their grandma in the trash out back, feet sticking up and all. Then the garbage man coming and being annoyed at the pointy toes but not really all dismayed.

Fomite4• 7 years ago

The researchers involved have looked a this a lot, and found very little evidence for it.

AtlasLion2• 7 years ago

"Corpses that aren’t embalmed or cremated are hotbeds for disease"

Say that to 1.7 billion Muslims who bury their dead using neither.

darkpuma• 7 years ago

Will they also allow sky burial?

Edit: I was being serious. I would choose a sky burial if given the option. Feeding scavenger birds is a natural and aesthetically satisfying method of corpse disposal.

wtdata• 7 years ago

"Soylent green is people!"

bronlund• 7 years ago

Of course. If you are going to kill 80% of the population it would be a shame making them all go to waste :P

basementcat• 7 years ago

In Washington, Soylent people are green!

djsumdog• 7 years ago

I thought "Green Burials" have been allow in many states for years. It typically involves minimal embalming, with some sites not even having tombstones or markers, instead getting state approval to bury the bodies in nature restoration sites/parks.

I guess that's more passive though, because you're letting a human decompose like any animal, versus active industrial composting like we do we paper towels and food waste.

stephencoyner2• 7 years ago

This is a huge step in the right direction. Despite anyone's opinions on death and burial traditions, the reality is that the most common practices are not eco friendly.

In the U.S. each year we bury 20m ft of hardwood, 1.6m tons of concrete and 4.3m gallons of embalming fluid. [1]

An average cremation takes 28 gallons of fuel. [1]

Also, just my own opinion based on observation, why do cemeteries get all the best real estate?? Dead people can't enjoy that view.

[1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-your-death-affects-cl_b_6....

komali2• 7 years ago

Half of Colma seems to be graveyards, but I bet they could fill it to the brim with 4 story housing units and not put a dent on bay area demand... always boggled my mind.

yellowapple2• 7 years ago

It's more than half, actually (IIRC upwards of 70%). Colma was specifically incorporated as a necropolis, and the dead outnumber the living by something like 1000-to-1.

Sure, maybe a bunch of cemetaries ain't the most efficient use of space, but it's certainly a really cool use of space. I live in close proximity to it, and appreciate it as part of the not-quite-green-belt between Daly City and South San Francisco.

hinkley• 7 years ago

Do you want poltergeists? Because this is how you get poltergeists.

colordrops• 7 years ago

Why are people still embalmed? Is it a throwback from ancient Egyptian culture? It's absurd.

tzakrajs• 7 years ago

I wonder if it's because embalming is a product you can sell someone with a large profit margin because the market price of body embalming is murky at best.

KindOne• 7 years ago

Slow the decay for funerals.

namibj• 7 years ago

Corpse viewing.

williamdclt• 7 years ago

For viewings. If the viewing isn't done in the 24h post-death, the body has decayed noticibly: it's unsightly and smells bad.

(take with a grain of salt, my only source is 10 episodes of Six Feet Under)

buckminster• 7 years ago

Traditionally you'd get the body into the ground in three days max. Nowadays that's not happening unless (like some religions) you make it a point of principle. With bureaucracy and far-flung families it frequently takes weeks.

Circuits• 7 years ago

I agree I always figured if the circumstances of my death allowed for it I would just go on a hike deep into the mountains, lay against a rock and die. I am not a huge fan of cremation or the traditional casket approach.

rjf722• 7 years ago

As space costs lower, one extremely predictable industry/business will be 'casket pods.' You get ejected in space at escape velocity left to wander until entering the orbit of who knows what, along with a natural cryogenic preservation. Kind of interesting to imagine sci fi scenarios such as one of these pods being the exogenesis that drove the seeding of Earth (or Mars as it may have been).

erikig2• 7 years ago

Cemeteries get the best real estate because they can wait it out the longest. When a town is formed the cemeteries are usually in the outskirts. As the town grows these outskirts become the suburbs which then become part of the urban core.

kashyapc• 7 years ago

Speaking of cemeteries...

At the end of this March I was in Stockholm. One of the most unusual "highlights" (I consciously choose to visit this place for its nature) of the trip was the breathtaking woodland cemetery called Skogskyrkogården[1], located just outside the city.

I spent 3 hours of walking and reading there. It's one of the most beautiful and serene nature places I've ever been to. When you enter, there are no graves in sight — a sign that nature is the central focus, not the graves. These are mainly located in the depths of the woodland.

It's a UNESCO World Heritage site; this was their justification[2]:

Outstanding Universal Value:

Skogskyrkogården, located south of central Stockholm, Sweden, is an outstanding early 20th century cemetery. Its design blends vegetation and architectural elements, taking advantage of irregularities in the site to create a landscape that is finely adapted to its function. [...] Asplund and Lewerentz’s cemetery design evokes a more primitive imagery. The intervention of footpaths, meandering freely through the woodland, is minimal. Graves are laid out without excessive alignment or regimentation within the forest. Asplund and Lewerentz’s sources were not “high” architecture or landscape design but rather ancient and medieval Nordic burial archetypes.

Skogskyrkogården is an outstanding example of the successful application of the 20th-century concept of architecture wholly integrated into its environment: the chapels and other buildings there would lose much of their meaning if isolated from the landscape for which they were conceived. The Woodland Chapel is intimately integrated into its setting, whilst the impact of the later group of chapels is heightened by the use of their landscape as a background. In both cases, the architecture has a quality of austerity that is appropriate to its function and does not compete with the landscape. The success with which Asplund and Lewerentz integrated natural with artistic and architectural values gives this cemetery an outstanding independent cultural value. Considered to be of the highest artistic quality, Skogskyrkogården has had a profound influence on cemetery design in many countries of the world.

[1] https://skogskyrkogarden.stockholm.se/in-english/architectur...

[2] https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/558

bluejekyll• 7 years ago

San Francisco evicted all the dead around 1900: https://www.7x7.com/the-dark-history-of-san-franciscos-cemet...

As other comments mention, Colma was the place where many of those cemeteries were moved to.

njarboe2• 7 years ago

When cemeteries where first created they were generally put on relatively unproductive hilly ground outside of the city or town. Not sure why you think they got all the best real estate?

TheSpiceIsLife• 7 years ago

Who doesn't want an acreage in the hills just outside of town?

Also, many towns and cities have grown, so what used to be a small hill outside of town is now, unsurprisingly, prime real estate.

papito• 7 years ago

That's actually horrible because the contaminated water runs down the hill and into the town.

nitwit005• 7 years ago

An average cremation takes 28 gallons of fuel.

That's not a whole lot. The fuel cost of everyone flying or driving out to the funeral probably dwarfs it.

Of course, we could make cremation more efficient if we didn't want to generate ashes for people to take home, but that's a pretty cheap cost for the emotional value.

educomments• 7 years ago

Also, just my own opinion based on observation, why do cemeteries get all the best real estate?? Dead people can't enjoy that view.

Old cemeteries are de facto parks in cities that grow up around them. They're quite nice and a decent use of land in areas that don't have the sort of pressing housing needs that SFBA has.

anyfoo2• 7 years ago

In Munich, I lived near the "Old Northern Cemetery", where the last person was buried in 1944, but I only recall seeing graves there that are far older than that. It is now officially considered a park, and people use it for jogging or just lying there to relax: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Alter_No...

It's quite a weird feeling, looking at those gravestones (sometimes quite beautiful and impressive, to be honest), and knowing that, for almost all of them, no one is alive anymore that could have actually known them.

Bluestrike2• 7 years ago

My family's been in the cemetery industry for about 60 years, and your last observation is rather interesting from my perspective. You're absolutely right that cemeteries aren't for the dead. They're for the living, some people do take a degree of comfort--maybe even satisfaction--in knowing where they'll be buried. I've actually seen people bring a blanket out and sit for hours at their future gravesite, odd though that may have seemed to my younger self.

In my anecdotal experience, most modern/currently operating cemeteries aren't really situated in the best real estate. But most landscaping maintenance and beautification practices do tend to make them appear more inviting/relaxing/beautiful than just the land itself would seem to be on its own. In that sense, they're not all that different from parks; the name "memorial park" (cemeteries with bronze or sometimes stone markers flush to the ground) and the ideas behind the philosophy pretty explicitly evoke that image.

Older, historical cemeteries are a different matter altogether. As another commenter pointed out, some of them were originally located outside the urban core but still close enough for relatively easy access to transportation. Church cemeteries were often located immediately outside the church. Some were never really envisioned to amount to anything, but expanded slowly over time. The same passage of time turned their locations into valuable, prime real estate. And the same landscaping and greenery that most cemeteries try to cultivate, along with the sheer weight of history on their grounds, can turn them into wonderful places for the community to visit. Many of the monuments and private mausoleums are stunning pieces of architecture and workmanship, and the dark Quincy granite that you'll often find is instantly recognizable. Even more so than their natural beauty, these places tell a part of our history, good and bad. Not every cemetery was preserved like that, of course; others are forgotten entirely and re-discovered during construction projects. Or they can be damaged by natural disasters, such as when a thousand caskets floated away after Hurricane Katrina and had to be tracked down and reinterred.

Sometimes, that land is too appealing or valuable, which can lead to cemeteries being moved to another location in their entirely. It's such a royal pain in the ass, though, it's very rare nowadays unless there's no alternative such as with major infrastructure projects and the like, with many states having laws that protect cemeteries from arbitrary eminent domain and redevelopment, and requiring court orders for each individual grave, efforts to track down next of kin, etc. My grandfather's company was hired to help move a cemetery for a University of Pittsburgh stadium back in the late 50s or early 60s, if I recall correctly. Years earlier, it was much more common to move cemeteries and reinter the remains as cities grew. Sometimes happening more than once, which can give genealogists fits at times.

As for the environmental impact, you can look into alkaline hydrolysis as a cremation alternative, at least in the 14 states it's currently legal in.[0] It's much more environmentally friendly (no mercury pollution, for example), save for the wastewater it produces (around 300 gallons per body).

0. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/alkaline-hydrolysis-biocrema...

fenwick67• 7 years ago

An average cremation takes 28 gallons of fuel.

An average American has a carbon footprint of about 20 tons per year, so the ~540 pounds emitted from cremation (stat from that article) is a drop in the bucket.

Not to be flip about carbon use, but this is people's final wishes we're talking about. Death is a big deal.

chmod775• 7 years ago

Yup.

It also isn't strictly about the dead, but rather about the living who get peace of mind from knowing that their wishes will be respected upon their death.

Not to mention the mental wellbeing of their friends and family.

xkcd-sucks• 7 years ago

Dead people can't enjoy that view.

It's nice to have spaces set aside for quiet contemplation on death and the passage of time

siruncledrew• 7 years ago

the best real estate

Have you not seen what happens when you build on top of burial grounds?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poltergeist_(1982_film)

mikorym• 7 years ago

As programmers, we often discount the human element in the social context. It turns out that funerals are a very widespread and in some people's opinions a very necessary part of life.

Unfortunately, many of these practices change awfully slowly and arguing with people over their rites and traditions is a pointless (and somewhat insensitive) exercise.

You'll find on the African continent that graveyards are ridiculously large and elaborate (esp. in Southern Africa). My only guess is that these things improve with better education and in turn, that whole process is inevitably slow.

I can't say much for the US, but certainly it has the resources to be more innovative.

anbop• 7 years ago

I use 28 gallons of fuel in a week. Not going to be super concerned with my cremation.

pcunite• 7 years ago

This is an ad for recompose.life.

erikig2• 7 years ago

Meh...call me when they approve Sky Burials...

hirundo• 7 years ago

A character in Footfall (or was it Oath of Fealty?), by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, composted the inconvenient body of someone he had murdered. I've wondered if that was practical and this article says affirmative. But for purposes of hiding a corpse I'd think it would be painfully slow to decompose. The man-eating pigs in Hannibal or Deadwood seem like a better bet, converting it quickly into fertilizer. But then you have to keep pigs.

Is it legal to feed a human corpse to pigs? Maybe it should be. It would seem to be eco-friendly.

kakspuut• 7 years ago

Who's gonna eat that pig afterwards?

TheMagicHorsey• 7 years ago

Was this a burning issue to be resolved? I learn new things here every day.

Fomite4• 7 years ago

Honestly, yes. Like, there were major research projects being done on alternative burial methods.

xwdv• 7 years ago

Cemeteries aren’t for the dead, they’re for the living.

SketchySeaBeast2• 7 years ago

I keep telling that to my grandfather, but he won't be tricked into trying out his grave.

stephencoyner2• 7 years ago

Cemeteries aren’t for the dead, they’re for the living.

The living are there 1% of the time. The dead are there 100%. Put the cemetery in a place that isn't prime real estate because of this was my opinion.

vlunkr3• 7 years ago

I think you're being overly dismissive of thousands(?) of years of human tradition. Yeah, we don't act completely rationally when it comes to death, because death is a deeply emotional thing, and we're not robots. People honor the dead by burying them in beautiful places, it's pretty simple.

lostlogin• 7 years ago

When you’re in a city, particularly an old one, try visiting a cemetery. It’s nearly always nice and quiet and generally there is someone or something of interest.

Dylan16807• 7 years ago

People are in parks 1% of the time. The trees are there 100% of the time. Nevertheless, parks are for people, not trees.

bahmboo2• 7 years ago

It wasn't really prime real estate when they established the cemetery. Then those living people started encroaching...

loeg• 7 years ago

I don't think new cemeteries are generally placed in prime real estate. But as cities grow and cemeteries remain unrelocated, what was rural pastureland becomes something more like prime real estate.

yters6• 7 years ago

In general, why treat dead bodies any more specially than any other piece of organic matter? Use them for compost, eat them, make clothing out of the skin, etc. What's the problem? We do it to animals, and humans are just another kind of animal.

layoutIfNeeded• 7 years ago

For one, animals are properly slaughtered and they are required to be healthy to be considered for human consumption.

Dying humans are usually sick, old, or otherwise damaged, and are not slaughtered but die naturally, so e.g. they’re not bled out properly.

So even if it wasn’t dangerous due to diseases, it wouldn’t be palatable unless heavily processed down to the molecular level. At that point you basically get bonemeal, the same stuff we make from animal carcasses, and used as a fertilizer or food supplement for livestock.

yters6• 7 years ago

Yes, why not feed human corpses to livestock?

Also, why not slaughter humans for food when they are younger and better eating? Why do we treat humans any different than any other animal?

mises2• 7 years ago

There is a great difference between what is rationally true and what an emotional being (i.e. a person) will do. See the trolley problem and many others. For instance, people will stay in a declining stock past the "rational threshold" because they have developed an emotional attachment to it.

We view people and animals as different. We have a long tradition of viewing people as different. We have pushed those limits somewhat with organ donation, but generally speaking, we don't break people down for spare parts. Most religions and corresponding cultures view people as made by God and having a small element of the diving. This is the reason people are considered better than animals, and the reason there are different requirements for veterinary vs human medicine. Same reason we eat animals without issue.

Maybe you disagree; we are each free to our respective opinions. But most people don't view humans as "just another kind of animal".

yters6• 7 years ago

If that's the case, then why is it a good thing that humans are being used for compost? Seems inconsistent. Either humans are more sacred than other animals, and should be treated specially, even when dead. Or, if they don't need to be treated specially when dead, then why treat them specially at any other point?

I guess this legislation is a way to rationally erode the obsolete emotional reasons for treating the human body as something special.

danielecook• 7 years ago

From a very young age I’ve thought cemeteries were ludicrous. It’s nice to be able to remember a loved one, but after a few hundred years is it still necessary? The fact is after a certain number of generations no one is grieving or remembering or even visiting the cemetery plots. In a nearby graveyard in London the gravestones are so old and space is so tight that they moved them all out of the way to make room for a playground.

Who am I to feel so important that I should take up space in perpetuity?

After a few generations, document the gravestones and get rid of them and make room for a park you can run around in.

gtirloni• 7 years ago

It makes perfect sense but the generations that have to make that choice today (because they don't care about those dead people anymore) don't want to think tha they too will one day not matter anymore. It's a hard sell unless there are stronger reasons (e.g. housing is really really terrible that people will want to "disturb the dead"). Yeah, humans... :-)

8bitsrule• 7 years ago

I was amazed when I learned (from the net) that in 1900 San Francisco banned new cemeteries. But they didn't stop there: eviction notices were soon sent out. And from 1902 to 1947, bodies were moved out. Headstones were rounded up and dumped along the shores.

Many of the bodies wound up in Colma ... which now has 17 cemeteries, 73% of the city's land.

http://www.sfmuseum.net/hist1/index0.html#cemeteries

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colma,_California#San_Francisc...

stevula• 7 years ago

They used many of the headstones to pave parts of the walkways Buena Vista Park and some other areas of SF.

rjf722• 7 years ago

This may vary by person. For myself, I'm quite disappointed that my geneological tree runs dry just a few generations back. I'd love to see where it, it being me I suppose, began - but it's simply not possible. But today we're creating what may be a record that, at least ideally, people even thousands of years from now will be able to view. Imagine being able to see the thoughts and 'writings' (in a manner of speaking) of your ancestor from thousands of years past - see the lands that they knew as home (or at least what became of them), and ideally even see their final resting spot. Perhaps this does not appeal to you, but I find it extremely intriguing. I mean these people are quite literally a large part of you. I find it interesting to just ponder on such things.

It has little to do with grieving or even remembrance. In my case it's mostly curiosity. In a way it's akin to visiting a museum of you. And in the future people will be able to do this. This gets even more interesting once you consider that at some point, perhaps not far from now, there is an extremely high chance that your descendants will reside on another planet. I see no reason to believe that these descendants would have any less curiosity about their heritage.

That playground will eventually give way to some apartment complex, road, or place to buy crap and nobody will ever know or care that it was there. But the people of today are what will make up the people of thousands of years from now. And that lingering connection and curiosity of the past is something that I expect will probably remain with our species (and even the species we diverge onto in the future) indefinitely.

jnbiche• 7 years ago

I'm quite disappointed that my geneological tree runs dry just a few generations back.

Have you had a genealogical DNA test done and used 23andme or ancestry.com to try and connect to distant relatives? I realize many folks have reasonable privacy concerns about DNA testing[0], but it's highly likely you'll be able to connect to relatives this way and perhaps trace your genealogy out even further.

0. Although it's somewhat out of your hands if you have any relatives undergoing genealogical DNA testing.

mixmastamyk3• 7 years ago

Hmm, aren't keeping good records and cemetery plots non-exclusive?

mixmastamyk3• 7 years ago

Not only hundreds but tens of years when grandparents are not well known.

cbm-vic-20• 7 years ago

So... What happens when they inevitably run out of money and go out of business?

__tg__• 7 years ago

In other news, Americans rediscover the Jewish/Muslim way of burial.

reallydude2• 7 years ago

Either you don't understand the traditions you are trying to reference, or the methodology approved.

wii_to_low• 7 years ago

ever smelled a compositing body? its pretty nasty

OBLIQUE_PILLAR• 7 years ago

surprised no one has brought up Tibetan sky burial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LG1J9fnB4s

Parsi burials in "Tower of silence"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opSPc44s9_o

SmellyGeekBoy2• 7 years ago

surprised no one has brought up Tibetan sky burial

I keep telling people that this is what I want (and I'm serious) but sadly it doesn't appear to be practical in my part of the world.

megamindbrian2• 7 years ago

Excellent! I can be buried under a tree, like I always wanted.

AtlasLion2• 7 years ago

Sounds quite similar to Islamic burial tradition.

Washington state lawmakers approve human corpse composting

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