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Freeze-dried corpses (from Wired.com)
Sep. 30th, 2005 10:27 amGraves Go Green
The idea of a freeze-dried burial may strike traditionalists as freakish, but that isn't stopping Jonkoping, Sweden, from being the first town to adopt the environmentally friendly funeral. Invented by ecologists, the process involves dipping cadavers in a bath of freezing liquid nitrogen, then mechanically breaking the brittle bodies into particles. The remains can then be buried just under the ground's surface, where they can return to the ecological cycle within weeks -- much quicker than corpses buried in deep graves and coffins. Swedish biologist Susanne Wiigh-Maesak says the process is deeply rooted in respect for the dead and the environment. "Nature's original plan was that we fall down somewhere in a field and become soil," she told the BBC. "Since then we have made it really complicated."
-- Jenny McKeel
Interesting! I've heard that Jewish tradition is that they don't embalm (hence the quick buriel) and that there are holes drilled in the bottom of the coffin to hasten decomposition.
The idea of a freeze-dried burial may strike traditionalists as freakish, but that isn't stopping Jonkoping, Sweden, from being the first town to adopt the environmentally friendly funeral. Invented by ecologists, the process involves dipping cadavers in a bath of freezing liquid nitrogen, then mechanically breaking the brittle bodies into particles. The remains can then be buried just under the ground's surface, where they can return to the ecological cycle within weeks -- much quicker than corpses buried in deep graves and coffins. Swedish biologist Susanne Wiigh-Maesak says the process is deeply rooted in respect for the dead and the environment. "Nature's original plan was that we fall down somewhere in a field and become soil," she told the BBC. "Since then we have made it really complicated."
-- Jenny McKeel
Interesting! I've heard that Jewish tradition is that they don't embalm (hence the quick buriel) and that there are holes drilled in the bottom of the coffin to hasten decomposition.
