To Be a Field of Poppies

https://harpers.org/archive/2021/10/to-be-a-field-of-poppies-natural-organic-reduction-composting-corpse/

by nobet • 5 years ago

14 10 5 years ago

harpers.org

nobet• 5 years ago

https://archive.is/M0lYf

http://web.archive.org/web/20210921230754/https://harpers.or...

locallost2• 5 years ago

It's a good idea, but i have the same problem with it as cremation and scattering of the ashes. I always thought of cemeteries as places for the living, not the dead. Places meant to keep memories alive. But maybe I'm wrong and we have better ways to do that today anyway. The idea from the article is in any case appealing for a lot of reasons.

codingdave3• 5 years ago

I believe that cemeteries and human composting are compatible ideas - just instead of a buried box, each grave marker is placed next to a plot that is filled with the compost, and in which a tree is planted. 100 years from now, you'll have large majestic trees in the middle, with younger trees growing to the edges. It would be a forest instead of a park, with all the ecological benefits that woodlands bring.

Loughla3• 5 years ago

It's hard and expensive to maintain a forest for people to visit.

100 years from now, without an extraordinarily MASSIVE care fund, you would have a bramble full of weeds, with a few of the planted trees still alive, but certainly full of volunteer and other trees who grew accidentally, instead of on purpose. The memorial trees would die and need to be removed, much to the chagrin of the families, I would assume, based on how sensitive most people are about the memorials for family members that I've seen.

It's cheap to mow grass in a relatively flat field full of stones. Stones don't die, and really only need to be cleaned up every two or three years to stay looking new. Occasionally you may have to reset one on its base, if the original base is not deep or substantial enough.

Source: I sit on a cemetery board as the treasurer, and have actually planted and still maintain a small 50 acre woods on our farm.

locallost2• 5 years ago

You are right. I meant it more for the case stated in the article, where people don't know what to do with all the compost, so it ends up in the forest.

To Be a Field of Poppies

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