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Dissolving Dead Bodies: Gross, But Green

dsc.discovery.com — 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.

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  • jontalisman, on 05/12/2008, -3/+21Didn't Dahmer patent that process?
    • ReligionOfPeace, on 05/12/2008, -0/+4He used the homebrew method: No heat, no pressure. It takes a lot longer to process and required more lye.
  • MarkusGarvey, on 05/12/2008, -3/+68Soylent Brown?...
  • hiscity, on 05/12/2008, -7/+18What a waste. Take the best parts, put 'em cyro-storage, just in case the family needs them. Reprocessing bodies for genetically compatible beneficial products makes much more sense.

    Of course that means harvesting them as close to the moment of death as possible.

    If you could give your children such a gift -- if they really needed it -- would you? Of course, they might not need it until their old age.

    Best place for storage? Likely in craters of the moon that are continuously shielded from sunlight.

    As for the leftovers... sure recycle.
    • sevenvt, on 05/12/2008, -0/+9Yeah but, the family needs that freezer space for groceries and stuff right? ;)
    • Monolith4, on 05/12/2008, -0/+3So... what'd you think of Art Bell's show last night?
    • ApokalypseNow, on 05/12/2008, -0/+13Cryo-storage? Dude, unless you will need those organs in the next few hours, all you'll be preserving is a pile of mush. When cells freeze, the liquid inside forms ice crystals that turn cell walls into swiss cheese. Sure, they retain their shape while frozen, but thaw them out and the the ice that was supporting them melts away, leaving a puddle of goo.
      • HonestAbe, on 05/12/2008, -0/+5Look up vitrification. They'll likely have cryoprotectants soon that can do this.
        • ApokalypseNow, on 05/12/2008, -0/+3Oh neat! With a proper cryoprotectant, then yeah I could see it. I wonder how long organs on cold-storage would be good for?
        • FLarsen, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2Soon? Organs are already beeing frozen and thawed.
          • HonestAbe, on 05/13/2008, -0/+1Really? And they still work inside living bodies? I thought it still needed some work.
      • FLarsen, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1No, cells don't form ice crystals inside that turn cell walls into swiss cheese. Ice forms outside the cells and dehydrates and squishes them by sucking the water out of them.
    • Monkeydew06, on 05/12/2008, -2/+2But then we might have some Liquid Snake / Ocelot problems. Personally I would not want to be possessed by my dead grandfather at random.
      • dullnation, on 05/12/2008, -1/+2Yeah but still... after 10 mins on the grill, they'd be great!
    • wrathchilde, on 05/12/2008, -0/+9I'm not dead yet.
    • TheFinaleofSeem, on 05/12/2008, -2/+7No, what we should do is legalize necrophilia and allow morgues to double as brothels! It's a whole new market!
  • LadyKofNYC, on 05/12/2008, -10/+11Oh GROSS. Why'd I open this link!!
  • obliviousfool, on 05/12/2008, -3/+31Down the drain? How is that "green?"
    • daiguitar, on 05/12/2008, -1/+19It isn't. It's brown.
    • KevinRWright, on 05/12/2008, -1/+12It's sterile and cleaner then most stuff in our sewer system. Like the article said, you often find blood and spill over from the embalming process in your water. And don't forget about all those prescription medications...
      • obliviousfool, on 05/12/2008, -0/+5Hey, I don't want those in the water either!
        • Fordi, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2Our water treatment systems are rather good at cleaning out organics - in fact, in most one of the first objectives is hydrolyzation thereof, as it generally sterilizes the lot.
  • tazdo0d, on 05/12/2008, -5/+13But we've all been drinking coke for years?!?
    • Fordi, on 05/12/2008, -0/+3That's phosphoric acid. Lye is pretty much the opposite of that.
  • matschig, on 05/12/2008, -9/+21Mix some of that in with your mac and cheese! OM NOM NOM NOM
  • speedyrev, on 05/12/2008, -1/+23The mob's been doing it for years;)
    • GreenGrassyNoel, on 05/12/2008, -1/+3never new the mafia was an eco-friendly organization.
  • Shadowgamers, on 05/12/2008, -9/+12Soylent Green is peeooooooooooooooooooooooopllllllllllllllle
  • mydingaling, on 05/12/2008, -3/+11Rethinking the soup option for lunch...
  • ElAssoWipo, on 05/12/2008, -9/+32This is green because instead of letting organic materials like corpses rot in the ground they put toxic substances strong enough to disolve bone in the water system.

    That makes sense.

    "Green way to cut your lawn: Flamethrowers!"
    • sevenvt, on 05/12/2008, -0/+8Meh, you are assuming they are going to illegally dump active lye into the water system, and you are also assuming they use A LOT of it and that its not neutralized after cutting into a 180 pounds of bone and fat, or that they don't neutralize it before flushing.
      • ElAssoWipo, on 05/12/2008, -4/+7Legally or not: lye vs no lye.

        In terms of ecology, natural decomposition wins.
        • EtherGnat, on 05/12/2008, -0/+4Maybe, if you toss a body in the ground. That's not the way things are done anymore, though. You've typically got embalming, a casket, etc.
        • Fordi, on 05/12/2008, -0/+3Lye + neutralizing acid = water + salt.

          Lye isn't toxic if it's neutralized. I'm sorry, but you're being alarmist.
    • Zippo, on 05/12/2008, -0/+5Actually, that's not unheard of in Japan... not the whole lawn, obviously... but I've seen people in Japan use blowtorches to remove weeds and grass that crop up in their rock gardens.
      • SeaICIubber, on 05/12/2008, -0/+3and the UK!
        My mates dad used to have one when we were kids. iirc it ran on kerosene and indeed more like a blowtorch with a flame approximately 6 inches long. Still as a kid it was really cool, especially when he let us have a go. nB this was in the 70's before we got excessively safety conscious!
    • chongli, on 05/12/2008, -0/+6Lye is commonly used to make soap by reacting it with fat. Tons of soap ends up being flushed down the drain. How is this process any different?
      • ElAssoWipo, on 05/12/2008, -2/+4It's not, it pollutes the same.
        • obliviousfool, on 05/12/2008, -2/+1Except that soap doesn't have dead human in it! Ewwwww...
        • Fordi, on 05/12/2008, -0/+3Soap isn't exactly the world's most terrible pollutant - though, some surfactants used in liquid soaps are pretty bad.
  • KlogereEndGrim, on 05/12/2008, -5/+8thousands of years of progress and evolution, and it's all just flushed down the toilet.
    • FLarsen, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1Well, at least this result of evolution isn't turned into ***** before being flushed.
  • dankuckuck, on 05/12/2008, -2/+24Thank goodness for all the research done by serial killers and mobsters to make this dream a profitable reality.
  • sevenvt, on 05/12/2008, -4/+7This officially makes buried alive, less scary. Imagine the first live person they accidentally douse in lye and shove in a pressurized oven, they would be PISSED. lol

    Its also now my new choice over cremation!
    • JMScheib, on 05/12/2008, -1/+4I know. This is like one of my worst nightmares.
  • suzywang3000, on 05/12/2008, -2/+10no Clarice that is incidental...
  • WoogieHauser, on 05/12/2008, -1/+7Not only gross, but flushing it down the toilet? Oh man.
  • fr3ddie, on 05/12/2008, -1/+15brown residue? lets smoke it!
    • sevenvt, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1Who wants to scrape a tube THAT big!
    • mediaspree, on 05/12/2008, -1/+3didn't Keith Richard snort his father?
      • yojiffyskippy, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1and that was when he was ALIVE!
    • TheFinaleofSeem, on 05/12/2008, -0/+4You should hook up with those guys that made a skull bong.
  • theholyraptor, on 05/12/2008, -3/+20So it saves space in cemetarys (good) but so does cremation.

    It's greener because you're not burning someone like cremation, but has anyone done the math on the cost of production and transport of the chemicals they use to perform this?

    It can be dumped down the drain afterwards, only to be processed by our sewer system which costs energy and money. If it's that eco friendly post process, why not use it to water the lawns at cemetarys or something similar?

    How much energy and materials have to go in with providing these new metal canisters that they perform the reaction in? How does that way versus the energy of a traditional cremation "oven" for lack of a better term off the top of my head?

    Everyone, especially marketing, jumps on the notion of something being green, especially when it results in your product coming out on top. Often, it isn't more green, but appears so by hiding it's pollutants and energy costs earlier in the chain before you get it. Same thing with hydrogen cars. Sure the car doesn't pollute, but you still have to create the energy used to produce the hydrogen which still is majorilly not green until we have some sort of massive green energy electrical grid.
    • GreenGrassyNoel, on 05/12/2008, -1/+4Agreed. I'm going to look more into this, but it seems that being buried in the ground, resulting in a small patch of land that will not be turned into a parking lot any time soon sounds pretty eco-friendly to me. The HBO show Six Feet Under talks about this, (everyone should watch SFU, there is a good chance that it will change your life).
      • keeperofkeys, on 05/12/2008, -0/+3Yep. Bury me in the desert under a tree - only maybe not in secret in the dead of night...
  • Shatfacedpanda, on 05/12/2008, -9/+10Wow at least cremation doesn't involve liquefying your body with bad ass chemicals. I'm tired of hearing this go green crap, Captain planet and the tree huggers are taking it too extreme now.
    • calibration, on 05/12/2008, -3/+2Does it really matter? You're dead anyways.
    • Fordi, on 05/12/2008, -0/+3Yeeeah... burning a body is somehow better than chemically burning a body.

      At least chemically burning the body is somewhat less energy intensive.
      • FLarsen, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2Could you tell me the difference between burning a body and chemically burning a body?
        • Fordi, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1Burning a body uses a great deal of heat energy to break the intermolecular bonds in the tissues, while boiling off all the water. Chemically burning a body (in this case) uses a modest amount of heat energy, pressure, and an aggressive chemical to first release hydrogen from the lye->protein reaction, then liquefy the remaining tissues through endothermic hydrolyzation. The result in the latter case is that the body is rendered to a syrupy liquid, rather than mostly powdered carbon.

          The latter case, by the way, once processed by your Friendly Neighborhood Sewage Treatment Plant, is divided into water and sludge, the latter of which is normally further processed into topsoil or fertilizer, depending on what method they use.
  • Junior27, on 05/12/2008, -3/+15Anyone else remember them doing this in Waterworld with Kevin Costner?
    • joshhan, on 05/12/2008, -0/+9I think you and I are the only ones who watched that movie, so I dugg you up for that scene.
    • wrathchilde, on 05/12/2008, -1/+4That's what I was thinking, but I thought it was Pulp Fiction...
      • joshhan, on 05/12/2008, -0/+5I think you are confusing similar characters played by the same person. The Wolf in Pulp Fiction played by Harvey Keitel played a similar role in the American version of Point of No Return (Victor the Cleaner) where he disposes of a body in various chemicals to the utter disgust of the assassins around him. However, since Point of No Return was earlier than Pulp Fiction, you could argue that Quentin basically lifted the character right from that scene.
    • TheFinaleofSeem, on 05/12/2008, -1/+5I did that to a copy of Waterworld once.
    • FearlessFreep, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1That was my first thought as well
    • BoonTobias, on 05/12/2008, -1/+0think that was the downfall of costner, or was it The Postman?
  • spiritflare1, on 05/12/2008, -4/+9Before flushing body juice down the drain, I would recommend checking with your local sewage treatment plant if they are equipped to handle this. you know.
    • jjpertusch, on 05/12/2008, -0/+8yeah, for those who are into dissolving bodies at home rather than having it done by someone trained to do this, check your local sewage treatment plant.
    • waif69, on 05/12/2008, -0/+5That is all part of the permit process.
    • ReligionOfPeace, on 05/12/2008, -0/+4Drain cleaners (particularly Drano crystals) use lye. So do bakeries that make pretzels and bagels.
    • Fordi, on 05/12/2008, -0/+3Sodium Hydroxide + Hydrochloric acid = Water + salt
      Everything else in that mix is chemically indistinguishable from food waste (hydrolyzed fats, broken protein chains, short chain starches and sugars). Essentially, the brown residue is no more or less dangerous to the system than salty poop, if properly neurtalized before flushing.
  • Easty, on 05/12/2008, -1/+5Now if it could be used as some sort of fuel or fertiliser, I'd say that's useful.
    But really this is just a bit pointless.
    • Fordi, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2Unfortunately, due to the salt content in the organics once the lye is neutralized, it's probably unusable for fertilizer until the water treatment facility is able to process it into sludge (infrastructure already exists and is used for sale of this stuff as fertilizers).
      • FLarsen, on 05/12/2008, -0/+4But electrolytes is what plants crave!
        • Fordi, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1Not in these concentrations. Given the amount of lye needed to release sufficient hydrogen for hydrolization to act, and the amount of salt found in the human body, you're going to have concentrations of NaCl that rival that of ocean water.
  • maldovix, on 05/12/2008, -3/+1John, I want you to come meet Jim here, he's an editor for Funeral Service Insider.
  • kinerry, on 05/12/2008, -9/+2I finally have the solution to the perfect crime; no body = no conviction

    Seriously though, this shouldn't be public domain knowledge
    • enicholas, on 05/12/2008, -2/+8Ummm... it's been public domain knowledge for a long time.
    • yedrellow, on 05/12/2008, -1/+6Of course, but there have been plenty of convictions without bodies or even crime scenes in the past. Also, if you have trace but detectable amounts of this chemical on you a couple of days after your victim went missing (and you have some form of relation to this victim), you're pretty much guaranteed to be convicted in most cases. This is of course unless you work in a job which handles these chemicals, or had another reason to handle it.
    • pentalive, on 05/12/2008, -0/+5Better ask Hans Reiser about that "no body = no conviction" thing
  • brenbart, on 05/12/2008, -2/+10"the process leaves a dry bone residue similar in appearance and volume to cremated"

    What do you want to bet it also leaves a residue of dental gold? I wonder if that would end up in the urn or somebody's pocket?
    • HonestAbe, on 05/12/2008, -0/+5I'm sure they remove that first. How is that any different from cremation? Does gold burn?
  • radiantstorm, on 05/12/2008, -1/+13Wasn't this par for the course in The Matrix?
  • trademarkhero, on 05/12/2008, -3/+7Oh great. Flushed down the drain. Like a goldfish. Only liquid form. Like a goldfish in a blender.
  • DCGaymer, on 05/12/2008, -2/+6Alternate headlines:

    Rise of the Hominy people.
    Grandma returns from grave….as soap.
    Lye, it’s not just for lutefisk anymore.
  • ErikHarrison, on 05/12/2008, -5/+6I just puked in my mouth.
    • yojiffyskippy, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1It could have been worse; body juice in your mouth.
  • SoundJudgment, on 05/12/2008, -1/+7"Runner! Stay were you are! There is no place to hide!"
  • nem0, on 05/12/2008, -4/+4Seems like a waste. We should be more like Chuck Norris: "When Steven Segal kills a ninja, he only uses the hide. When Chuck Norris kills a ninja, he uses every part."
  • beersnob, on 05/12/2008, -2/+13This liquification process doesn't seem any more environmentally friendly than cremation. Why not just compost yourself? No toxic chemicals, no extra load on sewage treatment facilities. I want to be composted when I die.
    • TripcodeMel, on 05/12/2008, -1/+3I want to be buried in a shallow grave with a shovel.
    • Fordi, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2Composting is different from burial... how?
    • Throwmeabone, on 05/13/2008, -0/+1That's how Muslims bury their dead. They are just wrapped in white sheets and put in the ground a few hours after death.
  • HonestAbe, on 05/12/2008, -0/+11I liked the "freeze with liquid nitrogen, turn into dust with ultrasound and a dryer, and mix with potting soil and plant a tree in the middle" method, myself.
  • SeaICIubber, on 05/12/2008, -1/+22000AD's Resyk is one step closer.
    Role on the Judges!
  • TheFinaleofSeem, on 05/12/2008, -1/+4Wow, looks like I've been saving the environment for years!
  • pitdog, on 05/12/2008, -0/+4Good that those dissolving bodies are DEAD...
  • stopthistrain, on 05/12/2008, -0/+10I suggest everyone read the book "Stiff". Great book. Talks about cadavers, dead bodies and the the number of ways bodies can be dealt with.
    No one should be saying, "eww, gross". If you're buried in the ground, you turn into a pile of puss surrounded by bones anyway. It's all gruesome. Rotting bodies aren't pretty. Whatever you choose to do with your body once you're gone is going to be ugly and gross.
    In Sweden they've developed "Promessa, a method for recycling human corpses into fertilizer. While cremation burns fossil fuels and releases pollutants, burials require that the corpse be filled with embalming fluids which can pollute the groundwater as the body decays. This solution has bodies immersed in liquid nitrogen to remove water, causing them to crumble into fine organic dust. This is then placed in a container that biodegrades within six months."
    Instead of chopping trees for coffins, become the fertilizer to grow one. Be a real environmentalist. If this ever catches on, I would do it.
    Or you can always donate your body to science instead. :) As a future med student we need those cadavers!!
    • ReligionOfPeace, on 05/12/2008, -0/+5Actually, the only reason for the embalming is so that you don't end up rotting in before they plant you. Embalming is a racket pushed for my mortuaries to make money. Just like requiring you to purchase a coffin for a cremation.
  • Yoness, on 05/12/2008, -0/+4Ashes to Ashes, dust to drain-o...
  • Infowarmachine, on 05/12/2008, -0/+4flush grandma down the toilet?

    you shoudl recycle your relatives ;)
  • corbettkroehler, on 05/12/2008, -2/+2I'm as green as they come but now EXTRA glad that I will donate my remains to science!
  • DeFex, on 05/12/2008, -0/+5dont waste the biomass, use it for fuel or something.
  • timla, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2Hey, sounds good, there are realtives of mine i would not mine flushing down the toilet
  • liuite, on 05/12/2008, -0/+7what ever happened to "reuse/recycle" as being green? can't we use worms to turn us into compost?
  • PlagueOfMorons, on 05/12/2008, -2/+3Recommended by Dick Cheney. And Consumer Reports.
    • aadnk, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1Dick Cheney? I think you meant cannibalism.
  • dtfinch, on 05/12/2008, -0/+4I want my remains to be butchered and fed to people.
  • IAmTheGuy, on 05/12/2008, -1/+11Am I the only one that was disturbed most by the fact that this process is illegal in 48 states? It isn't illegal based on environmental reasons, but rather that it is an "undignified" treatment of people.
  • anononon, on 05/12/2008, -0/+3Straw, please. *SLURRRRRRP*
  • Rowan187, on 05/12/2008, -5/+1SOILENT GREEN IS MADE OF PEOPLE!
  • joeanon, on 05/12/2008, -3/+6Sounds like a smarter way of doing it than releasing human particles into the atmosphere.
    The problem with burning humans is that they have too much water content.

    However, organized crime seems like the most likely interested party.

    I think burying them is probably VASTLY more green than any of these solutions. Let nature do it's job and give the worms food.

    Face it, we already have the worlds most efficienct corpse to biomass converter. From decoposing corpse to worm poop in only a matter of a few weeks. Plus the resulting waste products are 100% organic.

    I'm not sure I like the idea of flushing human corpse juice into the sewage treatment plant and rivers.

    What if we run into problems like they did with Mad Cow Disease.

    I think the idea of spreading out corpse juice into the environment with no idea of the dangers is just about the opposite of green. BUT, I do think you could make it safe, just not as safe as burying people and letting time and nature do the job. That's the green solution.

    We can just start burying corpses right in crop fields let em push up the GMO corn.

    It does ultimately make sense, if are gong to pollute any medium on earth at least water is the most adundant. I just fear the biological potential of releasing human biomass into rivers and such. Perhaps the process eliminates most health concerns, but STILL. We've seen the insane places bacteria can live and thrive. I don't think I want to risk drinking a percentage of corpse juice in my water or have the worlds aquatic organisms swimming around in any more human waste than they already do.

    water is just a dangerous place to dump waste because of the way it acts as the most perfect medium for bacteria. That's likely why life seems to have started in the oceans. Water is simple a more ideal place for basic life to mutate and thrive.

    That why I feel burying waste is safer, ideally in a place with little ground water seepage.

    Waste in water = new bacteria evolutions
    waste in ground = cheap real estate

    I think it's important to see you haven't solved the problem at all, you've just concerted the waste into a different format with differny decomposition characteristics. For that matter we could ground up corpses and sprinkle them on our crops... that's very green... BUT who really wants to take that chance just to be overly green.

    A major problem with science is the way grants are given out. Rather than people working on the projects that need to get done the most, they work on the ones that they have the highest chance to get grants or private funding on.

    So ... a cure for baldness is a more practical profit turn around than say... alternative energy.

    Face it, the US doesn't have a real need for a new body decomposition technology... PLUS we are one of the last nations that would likely be comfortable turning our loved ones into corpse juice.

    The US is fairly overly religious for it's standing and wealth. People don't quicly jump to new
    funeral techniques. The main motivation behind cremation is simply cost. I'd prefer to have a cemetary lot and a nice headstone or such, but they've made the process overly expensive.

    That artificial expense is driving kind of dumb technology like this and cremation when all we need are better designed cemetaries. The US population is rather stable, so we probably don't need a way to cheaply mass decomoise bodies.

    HOWEVER, it might be a useful tech for emergency clean up situations where you have hundreds of thousands or millions of bodies...still though... a big fire or mass burrial is likely easier than this process.

    I suppose some people would go for turning their loved ones into a couple gallons of biodiesel, but I don't think most would consider that an option.

    Since most of our weight is water, I doubt there is really THAT much fuel in the human body for you to have nothing left to symbolize your loss.

    At least with cremation you do have an urn and fire has a dignified sense about it that's been used for thousands of years..

    Turning loved ones into brown corpse juice... just seems wrong.

    • HonestAbe, on 05/12/2008, -0/+3/end rant
    • stopthistrain, on 05/12/2008, -0/+4Why do you need a can of dust to "symbolize your loss"
      Also how is burning a human's body dignified??
      It's a dead body, not your loved one. Once their dead, the body is just a shell. Throwing it in a furnace is no less gruesome than it being broken down and made into sludge.
  • malvado, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1The 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.

    and then we get our drinking water quality reports and addition to prescription drugs we learn we're drinking the dead, too.
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