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COMPOSTING HUMANS legalized in California

Ca++

Well-known member
They did say in article you can get the soil or donate it to a foresting trust to be used. But it can't be sold yet. Also, judging by how they tell us it's a method developed for composting animals, I can for sure tell you that compost will pass some screens and even shredders at some point to ensure all is composted. Basically to give away (or sell but they do say its not allowed) the compost they would screen out the uncompostables and also the stuff that is still solid and untouched. Thats how compost is made, even when wood is the only hard bits it still needs screening. For regular compost turning over is used most times, here they say just they just aerate it. That can't help with breaking down stuff as good as mechanical turning, so I would think they either skipped story about the part where they grind "the compost" to make to compost faster, or simply they don't care about composting all the bones, since they take them away at final screening.
Periodically turned they say.

Why do we need embalming anyway. My ideal is going straight in the ground. Though it presents some handling issues.
Here we rent a hole for 100 years. Few places, if any, can sell you land forever. If you have a family estate, you may still not be allowed your own burial grounds.
After 100 years the land can be dug up, and the remains burnt. So their is no avoiding the fire.
 

exploziv

pure dynamite
Administrator
Veteran
You can't compare active composting with putting something into the ground. The matter they add is the key to the composting. The body on it's own would be hard to decompose. Think of those materials as the "power" needed to decompose it much faster. Same as aeration and turning/crushing. In europe the higher end cementeries are basically cemented in and often the cap is left opened for ventilation, so there isn't much composting happening in there. Yet, 50 years ago you could be sure that 7 years underground was enaugh to be left with just bone. So they said a cementery plot can be digged up after at least 7 years, put that into law. Now they find that 7 years are not enaugh to be left with just bones most times, and is suspected the reason for this is all the preservatives we eat from processed food lately.
Embalming is done because of tradition, because we want to keep body in a nondecaying state to be viewed. If we think at it and don't factor the viewing in, ofc you could jump over the embalming. You would have to be prepared to give the body away for safe composting as soon as possible, tho, I mean the best option would be to have the burring arrangement negociated and even paid already when you're finally gone. So there is just a number to be called for collection once the moment comes.
Cost is also way too much now, because of the novelty of it and cause we can't accept that we could be composted cheaper if we left those shitty thoughts like "this method was developed for animals intially" to the side. Ofc, if we allow more time for it (1 month is quite short for this), it should also get easier and cheaper to do. I see no diference to a dead guy if he composted in a hole in the ground(or even a pile) or in a dedicated box. This is done just to be more acceptable and to be easier to give it to the family after, if they want the soil. If we would just want to be composted, it would be much cheaper. And I am sure it will get cheaper if demand comes and people see this as a normal way to go..
 

St. Phatty

Active member
You can't compare active composting with putting something into the ground. The matter they add is the key to the composting.

Besides chemical composition, also key is Particle Size.

For a production Hot Composting facility, that accomplishes 2 to 5 years of normal speed de-composition in 8 weeks, they typically have an input particle size of 1 1/2 or 2 inches.

That means EVERYTHING is ground up, that goes into the pile. Otherwise it won't be done after 8 weeks.

However, there is no rush on de-composing human bodies.

I wonder how earthworms feel about the subject.
 

exploziv

pure dynamite
Administrator
Veteran
Yeah but not even after those 8 weeks, it is totally done. The last screening leaves the hard to compost bits for the next batch. If you would have to make sure all that is compostable is composted.. it would be months (probably 4-6) per batch, not just 8 weeks. So yeah.. 1 month is a bit rushed and that is why I suspected they would have to grind it well to be processed or it won't be totally done at the end. Maybe "periodically turned" is the sensible way to say crushed to bits while it's turned around.
 
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moose eater

Well-known member
The accumulation of heavy metals in the food supply is why sewage compost isn’t available to the public. Perhaps it won’t be as concentrated in human compost.
Link is to on-farm composting of cattle: https://agriculture.vic.gov.au/farm...on-farm-composting-of-cattle-mortalities#h2-2
I think they were also finding PFAS, birth control medication, and all sorts of stuff that wasn't being thoroughly removed. But I didn't read much beyod that to know concentrations.
 

St. Phatty

Active member
Yeah but not even after those 8 weeks, it is totally done. The last screening leaves the hard to compost bits for the next batch. If you would have to make sure all that is compostable is composted.. it would be months (probably 4-6) per batch, not just 8 weeks. So yeah.. 1 month is a bit rushed and that is why I suspected they would have to grind it well to be processed or it won't be totally done at the end. Maybe "periodically turned" is the sensible way to say crushed to bits while it's turned around.

For the commercial places that have all the right equipment, it's 8 weeks.

Then the fresh new soil is in line for sale to the pot growers. I think that queue takes an average of 2 weeks. Of course the soil is still cooking those last 2 weeks.

That's the way it was done at SonomaCompost.com in the 00's, when Will Bakx was the tech. director.

It's very high quality soil. The chemical analysis read-out is very similar to a General Hydroponics label - some Nitrogen, loads of Phosphorus, some Potassium.

I'm not sure if it's targeted more towards the wineries or the pot growers.

One of their primary inputs is dead baby roosters. Sebastopol is a big chicken raising city, and the male birds are tossed in a chipper-shredder, then hauled off by Sonoma Compost.

When Will taught the Hot Compost class, he said it was "chicken feathers", but also commented on how on the days when they got the loads from Sebastopol, when he got home his wife made him remove all his clothes before coming indoors because the smell of death was all over him.

The DUST is really bad. The workers have a very distinctive cough.
 

exploziv

pure dynamite
Administrator
Veteran
Oh yeah, a chipper/grinder will for sure solve any problem with leftover bones and make everything easily compostable
 

GreenerSide

New member
Here they show composting 107 pigs in windrow. 19 days total. At the very end they show bone left. However, the bone has become so soft it can be easily split or crushed. Maybe possible if given enough time in the pile the bones would be consumed by microbes also.
 

ridoo

Active member
let dead peoples decide, oh damn lol, they can't because they are dead, only the ones alive think they have right to decide about dead ones, they think they are so much suprior hu ?! you are not, you only want keep your little confort, your psychological constructions about death and dead peoples and whatever moral things are or should be, you want decide what others should think also maybe, but you gonna die and your body will turn into dead meat, dead flesh, useless bones, and all your little ideas about the "good" the "right" the "morality" of this or that will turn into nothingness, stop think there is something sacred or superior into that meat bag because this is what turn us into monsters upon all other living creatures, we have no souls, insects may have souls, trees may have also, clouds have surely a soul, but modern humans don't, not yet, our past ancestors may had souls because they feared lightnings and bears and wolfs and respected even the wind, rivers, clouds, insects, they had a place in cosmic plan, we don't have this place anymore and we still think we are able to decide something sacred about our dead ones, lol, make them compost, eat them, put them in ocean, whatever will not give us back what we lost, forgot, throw away, and so on

oh damn i'm drunk again sorry
 

Vandenberg

Active member
The inoculation with select microbes that quickly munch a body away is being experimented with as we speak.
Hybrid blends of MicroBio-innoculants incorporating such things as EM-1 ( essential microbes ) would certainly go A long way towards expediting the decomposition processes.
Lets ferment your ass too while were at it. :)
Did someone say Bokashi?

Vandenberg :)
 

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