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There are approximately 6 billion people alive today. In all odds, within roughly 120 years or so, virtually all of them will have died. While this is tragic and inevitable, it also presents a dilemma. While many people choose cremation as a form of death, a fair few still choose to be buried. If say
one sixth of said population chose to be buried and 1% of them were to have a proper burial. That still leads to 10 million tombstones using up valuable space. And in 120 years or so unless we make serious changes empty space will be a serious issue.
Many graveyards contain headstones to people who have been dead for centuries. Without meaning to sound unfeeling, their graves no longer contain any bodies. But a headstone designed to fully biodegrade in say 20 years* or so would eventually free up this space for others to use.
The names would be deeply etched into the material** to prevent the names from being worn away until the whole monument is gone.
*I chose 20 years as it sees like enough time to allow people to grieve and to move on. If this seems too cold, then perhaps 50 years would be better. This is rough time not a specific number of days.
**I can't see why such a material couldn't be found. Let me know if otherwise.
A loftier idea
Ethermal_20Resting_20Place
[theircompetitor, Jul 24 2005]
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Burial is not really a significant space-
filler.
Suppose the entire
population of the world dies tomorrow
and decides to be buried (by whom, I
wonder?). If you give each person a 2m
x 1m plot (which should do it), you can
bury all of us in a plot of land just
110km by 110km. That's for *all* of
us, laid out flat with a little room to
move, OK? |
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Admittedly this is a fair point, but this only accounts for the people currently alive. "Estimates for the number of people who have died since the pyramids were built (i.e., about 5,000 years ago) are around 6 billion, which is fairly close to the current world population". This makes a great statement for the amount that we are growing as a populus. In the next few generations more economical ways of removing the dead will be necessary. Cremation is already a common practice, but some people prefer the traditional burial. |
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Also, whilst not quite mind-boggling, finding 110 square kilometres of usable space wouldn't be simple. |
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Isn't there a burial scheme where you die, they bury you, and plant a tree with a little plaque saying who lies beneath - there's a graveyard somewhere which looks like a forestry plot. |
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Well, it's not 110 square km, but 110
km squared, or 12,100 square
kilometres. This is about 0.02
*percent* of the total land area of the
planet. Can we not spare that?
I,
for one, would like to nominate
Basingstoke and its environs to become
the first well-tesselated graveyard; it
ought to be able to cater for all the
inhabitants of the UK, at
least.
If
you don't fancy that idea, then 12,100
square kilometres is roughly the total
land area occupied by McDonalds,
Burger King and KFC outlets (including
their car-parks, but excluding the
thousands of square miles of land used
to grow burgers). |
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Why not simply stand explosive headstones to mark the area? Not only would this remove the problem of getting rid of a headstone, it would remove all remnants of the deceased and their coffin, and a good deal of earth, making it a lot easier to bury the next unfortunate soul. |
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Suggesting we mark of an area to bury
everyone is rather ridiculous. Nobody is
going to ship a body around the world
to
get it buried. |
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Plus, people like visiting the tomb.
That's
why we have graveyards. |
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Suggesting we mark off an area is a
worse
idea than the original one; the same
effect
with none of the payoff of saved space. |
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Hell, the best idea would be to feed the
body to people/animals. |
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It makes sense but cannibalism is widely known to exist and for some reason people don't like to see their recently deceased loved ones being, quite literally, thrown to the wolves. |
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once families have moved on they should put up their gravesite. |
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What about people who are unrecognised in their lifetimes but become famous after a number of centuries, or bodies that need to be exhumed for medical or archaeological reasons? For instance, bodies were exhumed recently to investigate the 1918 'flu epidemic. This would be a lot more difficult if they were unmarked. |
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Kilometer deep shafts in Greenland ice would keep millions of corpses in good shape. |
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"Greenland is icy, but Iceland is green...what's up with THAT?"</tired old joke> |
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We could always encourage stackable graves. Perhaps graveyards that are more like underground car garages. Want to see uncle Louie? He's in plot B-6-8. Here's your elevator key. |
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EDIT: I'd put up an idea for underground mausoleums if every other culture in history hadn't done it first. |
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// lot easier to bury the next unfortunate soul.// I thought you buried mortal remains after the soul had departed.
I second [basepair]'s nomination of Basingstoke - the place is pretty dead already. On second thoughts, go for Morecambe - the town is just a cemetery with traffic lights. |
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Suet cake headstones? Or would you rather peanut butter on a corn cob? |
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//suet cake headstones// "This is the last resting place of Norbert Dentressangle. Eat me." |
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//the best idea would be to feed the body to people/animals//
I think the Jain religion practices this. Bodies are left to be eaten by vultures - the principle is that your dead body shouldn't pollute water or earth in any way. Quite a good idea, I think. |
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Consider me for at least being practical on this one. |
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But, why not just dump them in the sewer after they're dead? All that bacteria and algae and stuff would decompose the body pretty effectively. It doesn't contribute to global warming, and saves land space. |
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On the other hand, don't they take sewer water and re-impose it into the ground for nutrient and water re-usage? |
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<aside> Tombstones are already biodegradable...it's just a matter of time. |
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Plastic is perfectly biodegradable too then? |
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Tell that to the clams in the Bering Strait. |
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Clams are edible but mountains, plastic and tombstones aren't. |
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Plastic that clams have eaten still isn't edible. But they ate it anyway. |
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You want to bury people in Himalayan
clamshells? |
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Clams eat virtually anything. THey are the undersea water cleaners. They just eat stuff that floats around in the water. Seaweed, dust, dirt, plankton, microbes, that sort of thing. |
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As far as I'm aware, most municipal graveyards do this anyway. The plot only belongs to you as long as someone pays for it, or for 50 years depending on where you are and which is the longer. When your time is up, your bones are exhumed and stored in a ermm..what're they called , thingy. Then the plot is reused. |
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The cemetry type that [froglet] refers to is pretty nice, really. It's basically not a cemetary at all. ItÄs a plot of woodland. Each grave has a tree planted over it chosen by the dead'un or their family. The trees are gaurantted not to be axed for 50 years or so. I like the idea a lot. Also, you don't have to have areligious ceremony of any kind or a coffin or anything really. You can be wrapped in a cloth or anything. |
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One more thing, [hidden truths]. I work on archaeological digs. Believe me, there's plenty left in graves after 20 years or so. The napoleonic-era soldiers which we dug up still had hair and fingernails and their uniforms were still intact. Stuff from the bronze age, hell, the STONE age is still hanging around down there. Biodegradable headstones won'r stop you coming across body bits when you reuse a grave plot. |
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In the US, graves are permanent. You're dead, you're buried, and that's where you stay. |
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Of course, we have a lot more space because we've not been around as long, so... |
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