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Dissolving the dead (A radical alternative to burial and cremation)
BBC News ^ | May 22, 2017 | William Kremer - BBC World Hacks

Posted on 05/22/2017 12:58:21 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki

For decades, most people arranging a funeral have faced a simple choice - burial or cremation?

But in parts of the US and Canada a third option is now available - dissolving bodies in an alkaline solution. It will arrive in the UK soon.

Its technical name is alkaline hydrolysis, but it is being marketed as “green cremation”.

So long, Robert Klink

Robert J Klink spent his life near water.

When he was growing up in the 1950s, his parents had a cabin on South Long Lake, in Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes. He learned to fish and hunt near the water’s edge.

It became a lifelong passion, and for many years he and his second wife Judi Olmsted kept a couple of cabin cruisers on the Saint Croix River. Bob would fish and shoot ducks, which he prepared and ate by himself.

Shortly before Bob’s death in March from colon and liver cancer, Olmsted approached her local funeral home, Bradshaw Celebration of Life Center in Stillwater.

She told the people there that her husband wanted to be cremated when his time came.

She was surprised to learn that Bradshaw’s offered two types of cremation: the one that everyone knows about, involving fire, and a new kind, which uses water.

A pamphlet explained that this “gentle, eco-friendly alternative to flame-based cremation” used an alkaline solution made with potassium hydroxide to reduce the body to a skeleton.

“At first, I was thinking, ‘Well, I don’t know about that,’” Olmsted says.

But the more I thought about it, the more I thought that it was the best way to go.”

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: alkalinehydrolysis; burial; cremation; funeralhome; soylentgreen
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To: Covenantor

***for fear of upsetting the community.***

It is not much different than spreading quicklime on the body. The ancient coffins made of limestone did virtually the same and were called “flesh eaters” or Sarcophagus.


61 posted on 05/22/2017 8:30:28 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (That's my story and I'm sticking to it!)
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To: sukhoi-30mki

"I THINK WE'VE GOT AN EATER!"

62 posted on 05/22/2017 8:31:08 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: SpaceBar

Ashes to ashes... hydrolysis to purrel...

TIMMY: Mommy, where’s Grandma?
MOTHER: In the soap dish next to the toothbrush...


63 posted on 05/22/2017 8:32:43 AM PDT by bar sin·is·ter
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To: sukhoi-30mki

64 posted on 05/22/2017 8:33:44 AM PDT by Magnatron
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To: Magnatron

65 posted on 05/22/2017 8:34:30 AM PDT by Magnatron
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To: Clutch Martin

Reminds me of an old Cowboy cartoon from 60 years ago.
A cowboy is washing his hands and crying. He says...

“Since we sold those horses to the soap factory I just know I am washing with Old Blaze!”


66 posted on 05/22/2017 8:36:39 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (That's my story and I'm sticking to it!)
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To: NTHockey

Lots of energy spent to burn one body. Enough to heat a house for a week in the winter.


67 posted on 05/22/2017 10:06:05 AM PDT by SoothingDave
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To: Covenantor

When I’m dead, I’m dead. Who cares if they dump me in a landfill, cremate me, stick me in a box and bury me, dissolve me or make a decorative display mummy of me?

I’ll still be reassembled on The Last Day, and will have to explain my sinful self to my maker.


68 posted on 05/22/2017 11:23:47 AM PDT by JimRed ( TERM LIMITS, NOW! Building the Wall! TRUTH is the new HATE SPEECH.)
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To: Covenantor
groan
69 posted on 05/22/2017 11:29:15 AM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear (Not a Romantic, not a hero worshiper and stop trying to tug my heartstrings. It tickles! (pink bow))
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To: dsrtsage
Just don’t do it in your upstairs bathtub

Of course not. You do it in your basement laboratory, hidden under the commercial laundry service.

70 posted on 05/22/2017 11:30:26 AM PDT by NorthMountain (The Democrats ... have lost their grip on reality -DJT)
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To: sukhoi-30mki

71 posted on 05/22/2017 11:32:26 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: sukhoi-30mki
I like the idea, actually. I mean, coming back as a zombie is cool but sort of messy, dropping rotting body parts all over the place and what do they give you for lines? "BRAINS!" Come on... No, I want to come back as an evil skeleton who intends to take over the world. Fear the Lost Skeleton.
72 posted on 05/22/2017 11:38:18 AM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: sukhoi-30mki

What about taxidermy?


73 posted on 05/22/2017 11:57:48 AM PDT by bar sin·is·ter
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To: shibumi
yup, gotta polish that sword
74 posted on 05/22/2017 4:54:58 PM PDT by Chode (My job is not to represent the world. My job is to represent the United States of America-#45 DJT)
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