The Business Insider website has an interesting article about ‘composting human bodies’. The idea is to make the bodies useful and environmentally friendly. They become fertiliser and you avoid cremation which is less kind to the environment.
This is all well and good and it is difficult to argue against it on a practical level. It is estimated that one ton of carbon dioxide is saved for every body composted rather than being cremated. A neat formula. A bit discompassionate to be honest.
But what worries me concerns domestic cats. They are already rendered down for cat food. I am referring to some of the millions of rescue cats at shelters euthanised yearly.
If we start rendering down human bodies for compost, when do we start rendering them down for cat food and then why not terminate life at 70! Make is obligatory. Now I don’t mind if humans have to go to the processing facility at 70 by order of the government (Big Brother) but I do mind if the idea of composting human remains leads to more cats being killed at shelters to supply the pet food manufacturers. Just a thought.
You can see how it can happen. Once you regard human remains or animal remains as a commercial asset, a useful bye product of death, you are very close to some immoral businessmen latching on to the idea of maximising the number of dead bodies. How to achieve it? Kill ’em. Simple.
P.S. Washington state has become the first in the US to legalise human composting, a practical alternative to traditional burial and cremation methods. It’s coming folks. Stand in line at the processing factory for humans deemed to be of no useful purpose….
