SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
With an upcoming bill, Washington state might be able to start composting dead people. The bill aims to legalize composting human remains and the heat generated by natural microbes should bring the pile up to 55°C for 72 hours, which is hot enough to kill key pathogens.
The method is called “recomposting” and claims to be cheaper and more environmentally friendly than traditional burial or cremation. It involves rapidly decomposing a body and converting the remains into soil. That nutrient-rich material can then be used to grow trees, flowers, and other new life.
The alternative practice hinges on a bill that state senator Jamie Pedersen plans to introduce next month, according to NBC. It would legalize recomposting in Washington where burial and cremation are currently the only acceptable ways to dispose of human remains.
Composting was prominent in the Larry Niven / Jerry Pournelle science fiction novel, Footfall. However, the discussion in Washington was initiated by Katrina Spade in 2013 while working on her master’s in architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by exaeta on Friday January 04 2019, @05:26AM (12 children)
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Friday January 04 2019, @06:34AM (11 children)
Say, what? Do you think you'd be likely to eat the remains?
Really? After one month in a tumbler with weeds decomposing in the same time as the body?
The ncbnews link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @01:09PM (3 children)
Prions are much tougher than either bacteria or viruses. If anthrax can survive composting, it would be a doddle for a prion. It is strongly suspected that prions can remain infectious after standard hospital autoclaving.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday January 04 2019, @06:04PM (2 children)
Yes, but... will prions in the soil make their way back into the vertebrate animal foodchain before being digested / decomposed by fungi and other extreme chemical challenges?
Killing it with fire isn't the only way to be sure.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday January 04 2019, @11:57PM (1 child)
Anthrax manages to do it. Bury a sheep killed by Anthrax and a few years later the Anthrax spores have worked their way back up to the surface ready to start the cycle anew thanks to Earth worms and various other denizens of the soil.
If a Prion can survive an autoclave at 121C then there isn't really much in the soil that could threaten it.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 05 2019, @04:23AM
Anthrax is an evolved organism, prions are little more than chemicals - a chiral reversal of common proteins. Self replicating in a simpler way than viruses, dangerous like a slow fire, but not something with a lot of refinement and a multi-stage lifecycle like anthrax.
They definitely deserve due care, but a big part of how they're a problem today is feeding the entire CNS of infected livestock to other livestock. Digestive juices deactivate most of them, but not all...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by exaeta on Friday January 04 2019, @04:57PM (6 children)
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @05:44PM (3 children)
It sounds as if the entire human population should have been destroyed by these indestructible prions a long time ago.
Remember Cruetzfeld-Jacob rampaging through the UK? Supposed to happen by now. Anyone still alive over there?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @10:06PM (2 children)
The tradeoff of their design is that survive-ability is gained at the expense of spread-ability. If they evolve to spread more easily, they have to increase complexity, making them easier to destroy by natural and biological means. You pretty much have to eat a relatively large quantity of of them directly to get "infected".
We probably consume a couple of prions every day, and those few get into our system and screw up a hundred or so cells over time. The body can absorb such damage.
If they grew in complexity to toggle these trade-offs, essentially they'd be turning themselves into viruses or bacterium-like microbes.
(Score: 2) by exaeta on Friday January 04 2019, @10:27PM
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 3, Informative) by exaeta on Friday January 04 2019, @10:39PM
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @09:22PM (1 child)
So use human-compost to plant trees or non-edible plants, just like with most other waste products that can carry infectious material...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 05 2019, @11:28AM
How many humans will strictly follow warning like "do not use for edible plants" ?
Also, pets do eat lawn grass and earthworms.
Another consideration is, dead human body tends to be filled with medicines and other chemicals that survive composting and should not be released into the environment.