Posted on 07/09/2010 10:41:14 AM PDT by massmike
It could hardly be said to be the most dignified of send-offs.
Undertakers in Belgium plan to eschew traditional burials and cremations and start dissolving corpses instead. The move is intended to tackle a lack of burial space and environmental concerns as 573lbs of carbon dioxide are released by each cremated corpse.
Members of the EU Commission must rule on the Belgian proposal as there are concerns that residual waste could be flushed into the drainage system.
In resomation the body is placed in a silk bag, itself placed within a metal cage frame. This is then loaded into a Resomator. The machine is filled with a mixture of water and potassium hydroxide. The end result is a small quantity of green-brown tinted liquid containing amino acids, peptides, sugars and salts and soft, porous white bone remains which are easily crushed. The white ash can then be returned to the next of kin of the deceased. The liquid can be recycled back to the ecosystem by being applied to a memorial garden or forest or simply put into the sewerage system.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Belgium is a low spot under the treads of my tanks. They really need to be occupied again. Uppity.
CO2 is NOT a pollutant.
I like the Baron Bodissey quote! Speaks volumes and very insightful.
Why not just use gramma to make soap, jello, and lampshades?
What? I thought I just made that up!
Only losers cry out for fair play.
Well if you did, it’s very good. Tell you the truth, Baron Bodissey is new to me
so I went with what I saw.
Cheers
I was thinkng a little bit of Patton, a little bit of Stalin, a little bit of Napolean.
Well there’s big differences between those three.
Patton = Backbone
Stalin = Brutality
Napoleon = 4’ 9”
the Nazi’s did two out of those 3....no jello....
Now I see the reference and the use of Bodissey. It's a clever ploy.
"Sleep when you are dead." I learn something new every day.
HELMER: Climate change: a collective flight from reality
Global Warming on Free Republic
That sounded ludicrous to me as well, even if they're including the products of combustion of the fuel gas used in cremation.
OK, did a little research (you can find out ANYTHING online these days). Cremator rated for 200 lbs/hr uses 2600 SCFH of gas, or 42 lb/hr gas, containing 31 lbs Carbon. People are apparently 18% by weight Carbon, so 36 more pounds from the dead guy (or the portion of him that will burn in one hour), giving 67 lbs. Figure 67 lbs of Carbon oxidizes into 245 lb of C02, give or take, and I conclude that those Belgians are either really really fat, or can't do arithmetic.
Why not just a big old compost pile of human remains? Shades of the Holocaust, if you ask me...
Has Europe learned NOTHING? (Rhetorical!)
“...the idea of that stuff going into the waste water system is horrifying.”
No more Belgian ale for me, Thanks!
Leni
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