In Brave New World, IIRC, bodies were incinerated at power plants. (IIRC, the upper classes thought it was unfair that poor people’s bodies should make the same amount of power as theirs.)
In Soylent Green the dead were processed into food wafers.
I’ve mentioned this one before: Although they don’t do it in The Walking Dead (as far as we know), the animated corpses could be rendered to make bio-diesel fuel.
Each of these have moral/ethical problems, but they seem practical given the situations.
In Serenity, corpses were used as a disguise for the Reevers.
In Waterworld, corpses were IIRC transformed into goo and used as hydroponics fertilizer.
In 300, the Spartans just piled 'em up and pushed the corpse-wall onto the bad guys when the next wave showed.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: While in the catacombs, Indy crafts a torch out of a human femur.
Wow, if Voldemort were to read this thread, he’d probably come away thinking that his turning them into Inferi was relatively staid and conservative.
I’m going to go with my suggestion for Chum Disposal.
Just park a ship several miles out to sea with a large chipper on the back. Feed in the bodies and let the ground remains fall into the sea where they’ll feed the fish, crabs and other sea creatures.
Even makes fishing easier. Just sail out to the same spots, the fish will gather expecting a feast, net them up.
♫ The Circle of Life ♫
Which reminds me:
Fish, and plankton, and sea greens, and protein from the sea…
So, kinda like a precursor to Soylent Greenkilled the oceans)?
(spoiler added for the benefit of anyone who hasn’t seen Soylent Green)
I remember that scene. When I saw Babe, and the opening credits showed Roscoe Lee Brown as the narrator, I got a sinking feeling…
If I came into possession of some corpses and it was anywhere near Halloween, I’d be thrilled. Because hey, free scary porch decorations!
Free scary porch decorations, plus a date for the night!
“And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea—
In her tomb by the sounding sea.”
:dubious:
“I love the dead, before they’re cold! Their bluing flesh for me to hold.”
T.S.O.L. Code Blue * explicit lyrics, in extremely poor taste, etc. *
Lying on the table she smiles and she stares
Cheating the HOV lanes?
I immediately thought of body farms which are a real thing that forensic scientists use as a way to study decomposition for the purpose of solving crimes.
Since this is Cafe Society I’ll mention that a body farm was part of the plot on an episode of *CSI *and they have appeared in numerous other forms of entertainment.
Pretty much every action movie has a corpse being used as a shield, either bulletproof (not actually useful unless the man was wearing body armor) or as shield from an explosion (somewhat more practical).
So, my current Cafe Society thread listing when I opened this showed the following in order:
[ul]
[li]Practical uses for corpses[/li][li]Easy, delicious salad dressing[/li][/ul]