
First funeral held using ‘living coffin’ made of mushroom fibre - elorant
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/sep/15/first-funeral-living-coffin-made-mushroom-fibre-netherlands
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neolefty
A problem with local cemeteries (in the US) is that they require vaults in
order to prevent collapse of graves, simply because it's a maintenance
headache. You can even leave the bottom open to speed up decomposition, but
you still need the vault.

A friend told me that in the past, before concrete vaults were standard,
cemetery workers would routinely fill in collapsed graves with soil. Seems
like you'd need to do that for this coffin — or even for a wooden coffin
without a concrete vault.

I wonder if we could go back to that? Find a middle ground between giving
people time to grieve and reusing land once nobody cares anymore. Have a
periodic petition to preserve certain graves, but anything over a certain age
by default can have its space reused.

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chrisseaton
I thought the vast vast majority of people in the West are cremated? Are
normal people still being buried?

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s1artibartfast
In the US it is about 50/50

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datameta
Looks like the state with the highest rate of cremation is Nevada at 75.9% and
Mississippi has the lowest at 19.7%.

It turns out Japan's cremation rate is 99.97% (2014) which actually lead to
the appearance of "corpse hotels" where the body can rest until a slot opens
up.

It seems countries where buddhism and hinduism are prevalent have some of the
highest cremation rates, and unsurprisingly there is an overall trend of
higher rates in denser areas (even in countries where the average rate is on
the lower end).

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alex_duf
I wonder if that won't cause more bioluminescence when the body decomposes? I
seem to remember modern coffin are pretty good at limiting these effect.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will-o%27-the-
wisp#Natural_exp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will-o%27-the-
wisp#Natural_explanations)

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detritus
You never hear of a chemical and then it pops up twice in a week! Now I'm
wondering what sort of ghosts they have on Venus... .

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t0mbstone
I mean... why even use a coffin at that point? Just bury the body under dirt
and pile some extra dirt on top of the hole for when the body decomposes and
things settle over time so it is eventually level.

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dx87
The mushrooms absorb heavy metals from the body, so the mushroom coffin should
make the body "healthier" for the environment.

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t0mbstone
How many heavy metals are actually in the body? And wouldn't the dirt absorb
them just as well as the mushrooms? Wouldn't the mushrooms eventually degrade
and turn into dirt? Aren't coffins commonly made out of metal anyways? And who
exactly is trying to plant shit on top of graves anyways?

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voisin
I sort of love the username posting these totally relevant, well-conceived
questions.

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tdlm
How green-friendly is cremation at this point?

I'd personally prefer not taking up space. Just give me a web page memorial in
case people want to "visit" with me and I can even curate it before I die, and
I'm good.

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asadlionpk
What's wrong with just burying the body without coffin? The west needs to
learn a lot from Islam.

Dying shouldn't be so expensive. Think of all the real-estate wasted by
preventing the body to decomposed.

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7thaccount
Biohazards I would guess.

I would think that cremation is the most effective means of burying the dead
to prevent the loss of key real estate.

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asadlionpk
I feel cremation would be hazardous to environment.

Is there any resource on biohazards of burying? I will look into this
sometime.

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7thaccount
I mean. I guess a furnace does use energy, but humans have all sorts of
disease you don't want getting into your groundwater.

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fred_is_fred
A pine box isnt going to stop that either.

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7thaccount
Agreed, which is why I think we should always cremate.

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throwaway_pdp09
Death by Quorn.

