Norway's Graveyards Are Overcrowded By Plastic-Covered Corpses
This might sound odd, but after World War II, Norwegians started wrapping up their dead in a layer of plastic before setting them into wooden coffins and sending them under. Back then, this method considered to be more sanitary.
It wasn't long before all these non-rotting corpses (which number in the hundreds of thousands) took up all the prime burial spots, leaving the newly deceased nowhere to go. This mostly has to do with the lack of land, which resulted in every plot getting opened up after 20 years to let in a new inhabitant. Some folks can opt to pay an annual fee to keep their plot private.
To fix this, one former graveyard worker named Kjell Larsen Ostbye came up with an ingenious solution that involves poking holes into the ground and through the plastic wrap. A lime-based solution is then flowed in to rapidly to help accelerate the decomposition process. The technique takes about ten minutes each and has already been done in over 17,000 Norwegian graves.
Obviously, the funeral directors must get the permission from the family of the deceased before they can liquify the remains. Berit Skrauvset, a 77-year-old woman who often visits her dead husband, explains why she approves of this strategy:
I must say that I think this is a good thing, especially for future generations. The plastic thing was obviously a mistake and we all want things to end the natural way, don't we? One has to assume that they don't feel any of it when lying down there.
Now what we'd really like to know is which "genius" came up with the
bright idea to wrap these corpses up in plastic wrap in the first
place.[The Wall Street Journal ]
