eternity project biodigester casket by enrique alejandro goldes from argentina

The approach:

A lot has been said, thinked and produced about sustainable burials. Most of the solutions found in the market focus the interventions on degradable caskets or reduced impact ceremonies, but none of them focus on the main polluting agent of our actual burial systems: the human body putrefaction process by-products.

In order to think outside the box and to be able to generate innovation in the burial system a radical approach is needed. That means getting rid of all preconceptions, tabu, cultural and religious conditionants and consider the decesased human body as organic waste.
We will adress cultural and religious aspects once the solution is described.

The Facts:

The elements obtained through anaerobic putrefaction in a controlled environment are ethane, methane and butane (natural gas), nitric acid, carbon dioxide, carbonic acid, nitrogen, ammonia and carbon monoxide.

These elements are inquinant if not properly dismissed into the environment. Whereas in natural process the elements are slowly absorved by the environment our actual burial systems generate a semi-controlled putrefaction process in wich the elements are accumulated in lage quantities.

The objective:

To make sustainable burials we need to go all the way in ecological thinking and focus the issue in a more scientific way. We need to consider recycling the whole human body and not only the casket. We achieve this by generating a controlled decay modality by fully isolating the body from the environment and allowin it to decompose complettely in a natural manner. After this process we can recover the remaining elements recycle them.

The concept:

A new product and support systems,

a BIODIGESTER CASKET

A casket design to act as a biodigester. That means, isolating the body from the environment. It allowes the body to decay completelly and allowes the putrefaction by-products to be removed and reprocessed in a proper manner.

In other words, a casket that recycles human bodies putting an end to cemeteries pollution.

The support systems that complete the product are pumps or gas installation to extract the natural gas generated and reconduct it to wherever is needed. (for example to feed an ethernal flame or the crematory).
The leachate may then be removed to separate the elements and reconduct them to commercial or industry channels (usefull for fertilizers, detergents, etc).

Possible patentable products :

The concept allowes the developments of several different products:

- An hermetic biodigester casket: i/e a casket made of stainless steal (plastic matherial may be used as well) with a new formal aspect, that can be either refurbished or recicled,
- Support system to recollect the gas generated: it can be made in the form of pipes installation on cemeteries or a movable pump and compressor,
- Hermetic plastic bag to adapt regular caskets into sustainable ones: the bag is electrically or thermally sealled and goes inside regular caskets. This allowes to turn any casket into a digester casket.
- Hermetic body bag for catastrophes: digester body bag. In very critical situations the gas generated inside the digester body bag can be used as a quick energy source. The bags may have pockets to place identification, personal objects, dental registry information, etc.

An example: Eternity casket

Eternity is a cold-formed stainless
steel biodigester casket that reinterprets the product languaje.

It’s inspired in a serious of images and ideas that put a distance from the traditional image of coffins as “box for the deceased”.

Instead the inspiration came from a ship, a whale, a time-travel or cryogenesys capsule, a cocoon, and a human silouette.

All ideas that take us to an image of a trip in time and space, to connect with a higher symbolic significance other than “box for the deceased”.

The coffin may be used several times, it can be refurbished for new uses making it even more sustainable. it can become family patrimonium, and it can also be recycled.

As a biodigester, it is sustainable by reducing or eliminating the energy footprint of waste treatment plants, reducing methane emission, displacing industrially produced chemical fertilizers, etc.

Considerations:

Psycological aspects,
The biodigester coffin helps the bereavement by allowing the relatives to think on death on different ways, letting them notice than the remains are not the loved one, but just the visual manifestation of a personality. The packaging of a loved person.

Religion, rites & culture,
Special interest was put on the design as to not interfere or change habits, traditions or beliefs. The casket by itself should not be an obstacle for its implementation.

Usage steps:
Proper use for the casket should consider,
- Organs donation,
- Body put for digestion,
- Gas extraction and utilization,
- Leachates extraction and separation,
- Coffin refurbishing or recycling.

Repercussions:

Regulations,
Apparently there are no other really sustainable burial systems for citie’s cemeteries as the proposed. In consequence, the project has the potentiallity of changing burial regulations.

Architecture,
By elliminating the pollition of caskets there is no more need for rigid structures such as niches. In consequence, cemeteries can become flexible structures, allowing architectural innovation.

New business models:

New business models may arise from the innovation proposed. We may think on rental or leasing of caskets, or for public cemeteries we can think on low fees as long as the body keeps producing energy, etc.

Market insertion,
The easyest way to introduce the innovation is for sure the inner hermetic bag for caskets, because it can be applied to any casket available, with a low time to market and low prototyping and testing costs.
It also allowes to turn any casket into a biodigester casket without the need of making high investments on moulds for metal forming.