Engineering360: "Washington state legalizes human composting"

You're creating a prion loop...Misfolded diseased prions that cause brain diseases like Alzheimer's, CJD, Parkinson's and others, are not destroyed by composting, and can uptake into plants and other animals that feed on those plants, and other animals that feed on those animals, in other words you're introducing transmissible material into the food chain...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4449294/

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/the-case-for-transmissible-alzheimers-grows/

I thought they had found a way of dealing with their homeless, but no.

Composting in plain sight....

soylent green here we come.

I Remember that Movie!

The reason we burned body's was to not get sick form their remains. If you really want to grow something form your loved ones use there charred nutrients not microbes.

I wasn't going to weigh in yet but two thoughts.

First, SolarEagle makes very good points about the Prion Loop, although Recent research on Alzheimer's indicates that that at least is not related to prions. And as an organizer, before my retirement, of Red Cross Blood drive, I became involved with the research and knowledge about CJD. And that knowledge indeed makes the Prion Loop issue a frightening idea. It also makes me even more willing to be cremated, regardless of CO2 release. As a practitioner of Science and as a farmer, I am becoming increasingly aware of my plant's CO2 needs. And the non-technical non-scientific idiots in our political discourse, don't seem to even know that carbon is required for every form of life on Earth, or that while breathing animal forms produce CO2, plants NEED it to live.

Second, CR4 Admins, would it be possible to combine two threads (I.e.) this one and https://insights.globalspec.com/article/10861/washington-state-considers-legalizing-composting-human-remains, since they contain complementary information, which would further inform our discussion. In particular, the earlier thread includes a reference to an alternative form of decomposition, using chemicals NOT harmful (long term, at least) to the earth.

This in turn engenders two further questions. One, would that alternative cleanly break the Prion Loop. Two, what effect, besides PH changes, would the related chemicals have on the earth involved? (And yes, for now at least, discussion of these questions will require recourse to the earlier thread).

Finally, and this I will put into a proposed thread of its own, but I believe it is related to all of both these discussions, what function would Toadstools (of all things) have in the decomp and cleanup of both the cadavers and the chemicals (if any) used in the decomp processes?

If you think it of interest, and would offer insight (please do), watch for the related question in the Chemistry related fields.

And please forgive my "windiness". I find this entire set of threads fascinating and useful so many fronts, and look forward to your input.