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stubeeef

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Aug 10, 2004
2,708
3
Well this is the ultimate re-cycling job.......

Link-thing
Australia's Victoria state government has approved plans for the cemetery at Darlington, 200 km (125 miles) southwest of the Victorian capital Melbourne, where corpses will be buried vertically in body bags -- instead of caskets -- on grazing land. "When you die, you are returned to the earth with a minimum of fuss and with no paraphernalia that would affect the environment," a spokesman for Palacom, which will establish the cemetery, told Australian Associated Press on Thursday.

"You're not burning 90 kg of gas in a crematorium and there's no ongoing maintenance costs."

He said burials would cost about A$1,000 ($781), with bodies held in a morgue in Melbourne and transported to the cemetery in batches of up to 15 in a bid to reduce costs. Animals would be allowed to graze on the land again once it was stable.
 

mkrishnan

Moderator emeritus
Jan 9, 2004
29,776
15
Grand Rapids, MI, USA
In a way, it's kind of beautiful. I'm not sure I'd do it, but.... Zoro-Astrians in India leave the bodies of the dead in special places to let the vultures eat them. It sounds harsh, but if you believe that the physical body is not what is important after death, then it reinforces the idea that the attachment to it is something you must give up. From a Buddhist perspective, it seems good too, because protecting the dead body from the wheel of life could be seen as part of the ignorance that tries to distinguish us from nature.
 

PlaceofDis

macrumors Core
Jan 6, 2004
19,241
6
i would have no problems doing this, might prefer it over creamation myself; its between those two now
 

emw

macrumors G4
Aug 2, 2004
11,172
0
It makes perfect sense to me - I'd do it. That is, if I don't donate my body to science (since I am quite the specimen, you know :rolleyes: )
 

stubeeef

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Aug 10, 2004
2,708
3
emw said:
It makes perfect sense to me - I'd do it. That is, if I don't donate my body to science (since I am quite the specimen, you know :rolleyes: )

Guessing you liked the art thing? Fancy yourself in the ultimate "flasher" scene do ya? :p
 

nagromme

macrumors G5
May 2, 2002
12,546
1,196
Sound good to me!

Except I'd rather my burial land area be used to feed 20 x the people... which is what happens when land is used to grow food crops instead of for grazing meat animals. Putting a lifetime of crops into an animal that gets eaten only once* is not good for world hunger.

* Someone mitigated if the people who eat the beef agree get buried back in the plot ;)

I'll just crawl into a volcano when I feel it coming on. I don't want any fuss.
 

MongoTheGeek

macrumors 68040
I think its a good idea. I don't want anything fancy or expensive. I've given the following suggestions to my wife.

1) Flush me down the toilet.
2) Cremate me then scatter the ashes by the ocean
3) Cremate me then #1
4) Dump the body beside the road.
5) Plain wooden box.
6) Load me up into a cardboard box, take a collection at the funeral and take it to fed ex and find out just far they would send me.

Some other corpse disposal rites I've found interesting.

1) Viking funeral. Load the body on a boat with their trophies, push it into the water and set it on fire.
2) Zoroastrian. They believe the corpses are unclean and don't want them to pollute the 4 elements (earth, air, fire or water) so they place the body on an elevated platform and let the animals pick the bones clean.
 

evoluzione

macrumors 68020
sounds good to me. i think i'd rather be buried than cremated. seems like it would be a lot better for the environment too. that's a lot of gas to cremate you, and that ain't good. also, those lavish caskets you can get now, what a waste of exotic woods.

whatever has minimal impact on the world is fine for me. i would like a headstone under a big oak tree in the middle of nowhere though....
 

CorvusCamenarum

macrumors 65816
Dec 16, 2004
1,231
2
Birmingham, AL
Grandma is always with us...look

I remember hearing somewhere that you can now be made into a diamond once you expire. Basically its just a higher-temperature, higher-pressure cremation, and they add a few things and you end up with a half carat or so stone. They can even color it for you, and you can then spend eternity as the stone of <your name here>.
 

aloofman

macrumors 68020
Dec 17, 2002
2,206
3
Socal
I've got no problem with it at all, although I still think I'd prefer cremation and scattering to being buried in the ground under some kind of marker. It seems to me a colossal waste to dress someone up and put them in a VERY expensive box that people will only see for a few hours.
 

rainman::|:|

macrumors 603
Feb 2, 2002
5,438
2
iowa
wish they allowed that here. best i can do, for not wanting my family to spend a bunch of money on crap, and for my body to make the least impact, is to be cremated in a cardboard box (they require a container) but even cremation isn't perfect (it is, however, better than leeching formaldahyde into the ground water for 3 decades). So this sounds like exactly what i've wanted. Eventually, maybe more will catch on...
 

Apple Hobo

macrumors 6502a
Mar 19, 2004
796
0
A series of tubes
In my opinion, the funeral industry is too expensive. Tell me why I should pay thousands and thousands of dollars just for dying. Dump me in a remote forest and let nature take its course. Natural and free for me. :D No need for a fancy casket that will be only be seen for a few days before it's buried forever. I'd rather buy a dual G5... ;)
 

wdlove

macrumors P6
Oct 20, 2002
16,568
0
I have been thinking about cremation. This is really a different concept. Sounds as though there still wouldn't be a head stone.
 

CanadaRAM

macrumors G5
Apple Hobo said:
In my opinion, the funeral industry is too expensive. Tell me why I should pay thousands and thousands of dollars just for dying. Dump me in a remote forest and let nature take its course. Natural and free for me. :D No need for a fancy casket that will be only be seen for a few days before it's buried forever. I'd rather buy a dual G5... ;)
You could be cremated and then buried IN your Dual G5.
How cool would that be?
 

Apple Hobo

macrumors 6502a
Mar 19, 2004
796
0
A series of tubes
CanadaRAM said:
You could be cremated and then buried IN your Dual G5.
How cool would that be?

Way too geeky for me. :D I've never thought about this, but maybe someday we'll have a news article about a geek who requests to be cremated and buried in his Linux box. :eek:
 

JeffTL

macrumors 6502a
Dec 18, 2003
733
0
Oak coffin (NO GASKET -- rotting is cleaner than anaerobic liquification, particularly if you ever have to be exhumed) and unembalmed doesn't seem too bad.
 

Chip NoVaMac

macrumors G3
Dec 25, 2003
8,888
31
Northern Virginia
PlaceofDis said:
i would have no problems doing this, might prefer it over creamation myself; its between those two now

Sort of the same for me.

I have given serious weight to cremation over the years. Even thinking of how I would want my ashes handled. My thought was to have my ashes scatter half of my ashes a couple days or so after my passing by my family and closest friends at sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean. Then a year later (on my dime) have them spread the remaining ashes at sunset over the Pacific Ocean.

I talked with one of my friends about this idea. His only comment was that I always loved spreading myself thin. :D
 

angelneo

macrumors 68000
Jun 13, 2004
1,541
0
afk
MongoTheGeek said:
1) Flush me down the toilet.
That must be one pretty mean looking toilet you have....

I prefer the most inexpensive method. I wouldn't want to burden anyone with the cost of the burying me, seems pretty pointless to spend so much since I would be gone.
 
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