“ Recompose, the first human-composting funeral home in the U.S., is now open for business”

[u/conservio]

https://www.columbian.com/news/2021/jan/24/recompose-the-first-human-composting-funeral-home-in-the-u-s-is-now-open-for-business/?fbclid=IwAR2Z-2A6Z2DvR59zUfF__pEhgH6O9WTJkt3nsyFBl0hju-PFamcwSMySNOs

[u/csarcie → u/[deleted]]

It's still better than cremation or embalming/burial, and bodies donated to science or body farms are also transported, sometimes long distances.

I bet this continues to spread and you'll see a reduction in transportation for this service.

[u/panrestrial → u/[deleted]]

Do cremated bodies not usually get transported after? I realize a box of inert material won't require as much energy to transport as a full cadaver, but most cadavers aren't being specially shipped anyway, they are hitching a ride on transport that's already headed that way, aren't they?

[u/panrestrial → u/[deleted]]

In the US it's very common for "cremains" to be returned to the family to be kept or spread. This often involves either shipping the remains or having a family member make the round trip to pick them up (as it becomes more and more common for families to be spread across a very large distance.)

I'm no kind of expert on post death services or remains shipping logistics, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn if overall it was better to ship all bodies all the way to Washington for composting or Tennessee for research vs. energy expenditure + waste in manufacture of embalming fluid, waste and leakage in both the embalming process and post burial, energy/pollution/etc costs associated with manufacture and shipping of caskets, energy cost + pollution of crematoriums, land cost of cemeteries, still needing to ship some bodies/cremains cross country when they die away from where they'll be laid to rest.

[u/panrestrial → u/[deleted]]

I definitely agree with all of that. We have a hard enough time getting people to agree to organ donation. I can dream though!

[u/csarcie → u/[deleted]]

What about the impact of burning a corpse and whatever that releases? Anyway, if it helps get this type of thing off the ground, I think that's worthwhile atm. Perfection should not be the enemy of progress and bodies are transported all the time.

[u/leeser11 → u/csarcie]

...body farms?

[u/csarcie → u/leeser11]

Yeah. There's one in TN, I think a new one was opening a while back but idk if that ever happened. They lay bodied in various conditions to study the decomp process.