Ohio city explores cremating poor instead of burial

[The Straight Story]

Ohio city explores cremating poor instead of burial

Toledo now lays indigent people to rest in the city's Forest Cemetery, but parks and forestry commissioner Dennis Garvin tells The Blade newspaper only about 700 plots are left.

Officials say each cremation would cost the city $725 — $600 less than a burial. Thirty-six poor people were buried by Toledo in 2010.

The city's law director points out that other communities already cremate the indigent. Cincinnati has been doing so since 2006.
Information from the Blade, http://www.toledoblade.com/.

Toledo now lays indigent people to rest in the city's Forest Cemetery, but parks and forestry commissioner Dennis Garvin tells The Blade newspaper only about 700 plots are left.

Officials say each cremation would cost the city $725 — $600 less than a burial. Thirty-six poor people were buried by Toledo in 2010.

The city's law director points out that other communities already cremate the indigent. Cincinnati has been doing so since 2006.

http://www.ohio.com/news/break_news/112871954.html

[Parche]

1. what a bunch of ash holes

:grr:

[asjr]

8. That absolutely cracked me up!!

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. With a world population reaching 7 billion

we will move there, like it or not.

To me it really don't matter... but that is where we will move to.

[WillyT]

3. First The Ovens... Then The Gas Chambers...

Or do I have that backwards???



:shrug:

[Newest Reality]

4. Being indigent and without next-of-kin

I've often contemplated what would happen to my remains and I realized that it will be something along those lines.

However, I do prefer cremation, so that would be good with me. Not sure what they do from place to place.

[virgogal]

5. Cremation is the best way,money or not. Less land use.

[prolesunited]

17. Releases a lot of pollutants, especially if the body is embalmed

Best would be to create a park, wrapping the bodies in linen or other natural fiber and letting them become worm food and fertilize the trees, shrubs and flowers.

[virgogal]

25. I'll be darned,I never thought of the pollutants. The wrapping sounds

like the answer but I imagine there are all sorts of laws against that.

[prolesunited]

26. If you are interested in learning more about green burials

http://www.greenburialcouncil.org/
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/26/green-burial-options-increase.html

[virgogal]

27. Thanks for those links. I had planned on being cremated and

scattered,and have advised my family of this,but now I have another option.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

6. If someone else is footing the bill then it should be the service providers' choice.

I think cremation is a valid solution.

Personally, I think burial is stupid. Land is expensive and limited. Why waste it for hundreds of years on a grave that, in all likelihood, will never get visited. Hell, even if you're lucky someone might visit it once or twice a year for the next 20 years... then after that you're just another obstacle for some illegal immigrant to mow around.

[madinmaryland]

20. Except for us Genealogy Nuts!

Our research in part revolves around wandering through cemetaries. An incredible treasure trove of information!

[matt819]

7. Sounds pretty sensible to me (nt)

[lib2DaBone]

9. "Soylent Green is People..." . Charlton Heston

[lpbk2713]

10. Arbeit macht frei.

The city's new motto.

[IntravenousDemilo]

11. Instead of cremation, perhaps a more ecologically sound way of disposing of corpses...

... would be to mulch them up and use them as fertilizer, since we are more or less biodegradable. It wouldn't pollute the air as much, if at all.

[Motown_Johnny]

14. that seems disrespectful

I don't know of anyone who chooses to be mulched up and used as fertilizer. Many people choose to be cremated.

It seems the next logical step would be to sell them to pet food companies so the town can make some money on them instead of losing money.

Or we could just leave them out in the woods somewhere for animals to feed on. That could work too.

[IntravenousDemilo]

16. We're just meat, after all.

It doesn't concern me much what might happen to my body after I die, because I'll be, well, dead. Leave me out for the bears to nibble on, for all I care.

[Motown_Johnny]

18. the people you leave behind might care

Would you leave the remains of someone you love out for the bears to nibble on?

[csziggy]

21. I would rather have a sky burial - Tibetan custom of feeding bodies to vultures

But it is culturally unacceptable in this country to do that kind of thing. But what is the difference between being eaten by microbes, bacteria, fungii, worms, rodents, predators or scavengers? They are all methods for recycling the components that make up the body and returning them to the ecosystem.

Cremation is not a very "green" way to dispose of bodies - it uses a lot of fuel and releases greenhouse gasses and toxins.

There is a movement now to have green burials - no embalming, no casket, just wrap in a biodegradable shroud and bury in the woods. There are places being established as green "memory gardens", some are in wooded areas, some are more open. The managers select places where burials are appropriate without disturbing the plant life or adding erosion. Graves are hand dug, usually by the mourners. There are no plaques, no tombstones, no markers.

I love that idea - I've been telling hubby for years that I just wanted to be wrapped in a sheet and left in the woods. This would be a great way to do this that is legal and increasingly accepted in our society. Maybe that is what I will do with my farm once I have no more horses. I was thinking of making it a park, but a green memory farm would be just as nice since it would preserve our rather unique environment. We've got sixty acres - that is enough for a good number of bodies!

[yawnmaster]

24. some similarity to an old idea used in some countries...

That is, the body is buried twice...
Once for decay to naturally take place.
After a few years, the bones alone are gathered and "archived".
If there is no family to gather the bones for a family archive.

The green burial described above sure would have a lot of bones...I think that might need to be dealt with after many burials have taken place.

[csziggy]

29. It depends on the soil - in this area few if any bone are left

From burials since the soil is very acidic and pretty much dissolves them.

In a piece I only caught part of from the series "Out of Egypt" the anthropogist visits with a group somewhere in or near India (guess on my part due to the style of clothing and the people) while exploring burial customs across the world. She is allowed to view a ceremony in which a loved one is disinterred and their bones "re-packaged". It was very solemn and the man whose job it was took a lot of care to place the bones just so in the small casket used for their permanent storage.

The newly forming green burial business is still feeling their way. I think at this point they are thinking that each person will have a separate, distinct and permanent spot that will never be re-used. And it may be the law in some places that do not allow selling the same plot over again to prevent corruption by the traditional funeral businesses.

I would prefer that a green burial mean that there is little or no disruption of the natural environment so that over the very long term even if the site were excavated, little or no remains are left and the bodies have completely degraded. In a lot of environments that would not be likely - in this area it might be. In fact in this area, the plants might grow better where the bodies have degraded since they would provide much needed phosphate, calcium, and potassium.

When we bought this farm, there was an area of the woods we called "the pig graveyard" - the family that lived here before us raised pigs and butchered a lot of them on site. They certainly processed most of the meat and pig parts for use, but there was an area covered by pig skulls and other bones. Some were fairly recent, some much older. It's been thirty years and no pig bones are left. When we first found it, the newer bones were gnawed by animals looking for proteins and calcium. Even the weathered bones were gnawed by rodents for the minerals that can be found no where else in the local environment.

It's been a little over thirty years since we bought the place and I can not find a single pig bone in that area. Not all of them were scavenged or gnawed away by other animals and we checked on the area over the years. Gradually those bones degraded and "rotted" away in the acidic environment created by the leaves and tannin from the trees that surround the area.

Bones buried in the acid red clay soil here also do not last. My sister asked if I could get her a horse skull for comparison to the fossils she finds. I asked my vet since he had buried dozens of horses at his clinic and he told me that he has never been able to recover a skull or any other bones from the ground, even when he tried to locate them from known burial sites. Horses had been buried there from the early 1970s to when I asked in the mid 1990s. In that little time the bones had broken down completely to the point that there no identifiable fragments left, other than teeth.

[yawnmaster]

32. I sort of like the idea that 100% of my remains are returned to the many consumers eom

[IntravenousDemilo]

31. Two words... wood chipper. n/m

[IntravenousDemilo]

30. Again, that wouldn't bother me because I'd be dead, and thus past caring.

And yes, if that's what he wanted.

[Statistical]

12. I guess I am not the only one who sees this as a non-issue.

Then again I have told my family to cremate me, and don't waste money on a lavish ceremony (funeral homes have horribly predatory pricing). If they want to remember me have a nice wake with good food and an open bar. It wouldn't matter if I am a billionaire. If I was that wealthy (and I won't be) I would rather be remembered for the works I did (fund a hospital wing, etc) that a chunk of granite which marks my chemical pumped corpse.

I really don't see the point of a burial; honestly I don't. When you consider by 2080 we will have 10 billion people likely wars will be fought over usable land the idea that we have thousands of square miles all across the country "wasted" to holding corpses forever is beyond stupid. Society will need to evolve to deal with the reality that there are 10x the people that there were when burial became popular in culture. No reason there can't be memorial areas setup. Imagine a tranquil quiet park with well maintained lawns and lush trees with a pedestal where you can pull up a digital photos (or multimedia or even hologram) of someone who is deceased to remember them on special occasions. The idea that each person needs their own private 6ft by 4ft plot of land till the end of time seems rather quaint.

[Motown_Johnny]

13. I'm with ya on this

as long as they are treated with some reasonable level of respect, what difference does it make?

[GentryDixon]

15. Both of my parents have been cremated,

and that is my choice as well.

I was able to take my Mom back to her home in Nebraska after her passing. I sprinkled her ashes in the North Loup River where she and her siblings played as children. My Dad's ashes were sprinkled up the Gros Ventre River in Teton Park, Wyoming. For you old timers, think of the movie "Shane" with Audie Murphy. Straight up the road from the ranch is where my Dad spent his boyhood and a good deal of his adult life. I feel good about it.

[bobbolink]

22. "and that is my choice as well. "

The key word there is

CHOICE

[petronius]

19. I doubt the dead people care. I'd be more concerned that they make a diligent effort

to locate families before the cremation, and keep clear records of the remains afterward in case a family shows up later...

[MattBaggins]

23. I'm all for this with one caveat

Are not many religious groups opposed to cremation? If someone has say a necklace or bracelet saying don't cremate me is the state obligated to comply?

[canetoad]

28. Personally, I'd like to be left out

for the birds, insects and animals but that isn't likely to happen. Next best thing is resomation.

http://www.cremate-me.net/resomation.html
http://www.resomation.com/