Introducing Alkaline Hydrolysis
HomeLatest Entries
Hulu iTunesU Clay Shirky and the Cognitive Surplus The Utlimate Elevator Article Why Twitter?Latest Entries in
Science Geek
Introducing Alkaline Hydrolysis
Another Stab at Perpetual Motion
Wind Power Increasing
The End of Sleep?
Flywheels
New in mortuary science: Dissolving bodies with lye: Don’t read this before lunch.
Since they first walked the planet, humans have either buried or burned their dead. Now a new option is generating interest — dissolving bodies in lye and flushing the brownish, syrupy residue down the drain.
[…] The coffee-colored liquid has the consistency of motor oil and a strong ammonia smell. But proponents say it is sterile and can, in most cases, be safely poured down the drain, provided the operation has the necessary permits.
I think it would be weird to not exist like that. With burial, you have a body. With cremation you have ashes. With this, you have…nothing. You get turned into liquid then spread throughout the sewer system.
It was like you never existed. There is no physical record of you left.
Comments
or try hydrophilic acid (see Breaking Bad, S1 E02)
the cremation ashes thing…. i’ve always wondered if those are really your ashes. It seems a bit too convenient to me that a full human could be burned and the ashes fit nicely in a little urn you can keep on your mantel. I mean, are those all the ashes? Do they have a bigger pile, throw some away and just give you the rest? Can’t they get the furnace hot enough so that you are effectively disintegrated and you would be left with little to no ashes? Who says they don’t just keep a big pile of dust that they dole out to families and just get rid of all the real ashes?
and hey, who says you have to flush the lye-remains down the toilet? Just keep it in a milk jug and put it above your fireplace where the urn would be. :P
not to mention, you seem to have missed this sentence
That reminds me of an episode of CSI; a vagrant was being a nuisance to a hotel security guy, so the security guy beats him up, stuffs him into a duffel bag and leaves him out in the desert, figuring he’ll wake up later and be able to get out on his own. Instead, CSI gets to figure out who became “the brownish, syrupy residue” left in the bag. Ugh.
As to the poster’s question about the volume of cremains, the ash is strictly the bones. The rest goes out the chimney stack; at a high enough temperature, everything is flammable except the mineral content of the bones. It’s one of the criticisms of cremation; it contributes to air pollution, and if the person was also embalmed before they were cremated, what goes in to the air can be quite toxic. On the other hand, decaying bodies full of formaldehyde can’t do much to nourish the earth, either.