It’s getting too crowded six feet under…
Tirana [Albania] residents are trying to put off dying until the government and city officials end their row over space shortages in the Albanian capital’s graveyards.
Tirana municipality has shut down one of the city’s two cemeteries and said the other has space for only one more week. It blames the government for holding up the expropriation of nearby land that would add space for two years’ worth of graves.
“Death rites for a cemetery” and “Now starts the trading of the graves” ran the headlines in Albanian dailies alongside pictures of new graves dug in the lanes between old ones.
The Democratic Party government has had many run-ins with Tirana municipality, controlled by the opposition Socialists, including both the graveyard problem and the municipality’s refusal to issue birth and death certificates because it has not received the proper forms.
“Albanians nowadays are facing a wondrous dilemma: they can’t prove they’re alive, and they don’t dare die,” Korrieri daily’s editor, Elton Metaj, wrote in a commentary.
Most Albanians see black humor in the situation.
“Could you spare some space for me?” an old lady asks the gravediggers in one popular joke. “Of course, just don’t be too late,” they answer.
Hence the charnel house. Some old cemeteries used double or tiered burials.
I remember reading that someplace they let you have the grave for like 10 years or somesuch then they dug up your remains and placed you in a mass grave. Or was that in some fiction book I read at one point?
They could try cremating the dead!
The thing that probably makes the most sense is composting the dead.
* No fuel used to burn everyone up into ashes
* No land wasted on burying people everywhere (seems like we’d have to eventually run short of space worldwide if we continue doing what we do).
* You get benefits of rich soil to crops for the living.
Probably wigs people out too much, though.
If i have one pet peeve when it comes to grammar it is the constant misue of the word capital and capitol. from Reuters no less! Surely they employ copy editors.
Cremation is coming under fire (excuse please) for heavy metal deposits near the crematoriums. Years ago the crematoriums were located in remote areas. With the gas fired high temperature small retorts, almost any mortuary can add one. These produce no smut or fumes, but belches out all the toxic ions that accumulates over the years. There is a new method that freeze dries the remains and shatters them using ultrasonics. You get back a small box of organics that’s meant to be used a fertilizer for a memorial planting. This process uses far less energy and is more environmentally friendly. The US funeral industry is fighting Federal approval of this method. A Swedish Company, Promessa, has the patents.