# Composting "Grandpa in the Garden" bill has passed in Arizona

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/composting-grandpa-in-the-garden-bill-has-passed-in-arizona/1000350>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [April 16, 2024, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/composting-grandpa-in-the-garden-bill-has-passed-in-arizona/1000350 "2024-04-16T05:17:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 72

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**Author:** ![JaneDoe42](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/janedoe42/32/14104_2.png) [@JaneDoe42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JaneDoe42)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2024, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/composting-grandpa-in-the-garden-bill-has-passed-in-arizona/1000350/72 "2024-04-19T00:35:33Z")

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> [@Max\_S](#):
>
> Don’t you consider grave robbing immoral?

Not really. I think the custom of burying valuables with a corpse is rather wasteful to be honest. Decomposing meat has no use for a wedding ring or pretty necklace, I can’t understand why the families don’t keep their treasured objects as memory tokens.

> [@Max\_S](#):
>
> Say you made a castle but you don’t care what happens to it after you leave.

I also create disposable art and I totally do expect it to be destroyed, possibly by the first person who sees it. I don’t really do my works for other people, I do them to fill a need in my mind and when they are finished, I am done.

> [@The door to nowhere](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-door-to-nowhere/926328):
>
> Not wanting to hi-jack the [Mysterious 2001-like monolith](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysterious-2001-like-monolith-discovered-in-utah/926298) thread, I’d like to share my story about how sometimes odd things end up in the wilderness. This story takes place on and around what is now the [Agra Fria National Monument](https://www.blm.gov/national-conservation-lands/arizona/agua-fria) before it had a name. Around 30 years ago, I was driving my '65 Chevy pick-up home from work when I saw that someone had put an entire hung door still on the frame out as trash. Who could possibly drive away and leave that prize? Not me, that was for sure. I loaded it …

I do very expensive, award winning needlework and can spend over a year on a single piece. Once they are finished, most of them get looked at a couple of times and then put in a drawer with all of the other expensive pieces I’ve finished over the year. The only reason I bother to keep them is because someone will want one. I’ve also thrown a lot of finished pieces in the trash.

> [@Max\_S](#):
>
> I draw an analogy between my sandcastle and my body, though imperfect as the abandoned castle is analogous to the grave rather than the body itself.

I really can kinda get what you are saying, but I really don’t _understand_ at all despite your wonderful explanation. I appreciate you taking the time to try to explain it to someone who has a totally different mindset and I certainly don’t feel that you are wrong. They are your feelings and are just as valid as mine.

> [@TRC4941](#):
>
> Would you have no respect for their body? Would you say - “just throw it out, it’s just a piece of meat”?

Your post is what made me take so long to come back. Yes, that is just how I feel. I’m firmly on Team Compost after Organ Donations. If it was legal to send the meat that looked like me to the landfill, I would object but only because that would be pretty wasteful.

We all process this sort of thing differently and if you wanted your body to be anointed and wrapped and prayed over, than that is what you should have.

I had a beloved cat put down a few days before your post and once the life left her body, it wasn’t the cat I used to cuddle with at night, it wasn’t the cat that brought me her toys every day, it wasn’t the cat I loved. It was a dead hunk of meat that sorta looked like a cat. I am still grieving for the loss of the cat, but once she was gone, I handed her over to the vet and walked away without a backward look. It wasn’t my cat anymore.

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