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Letter: Dog's dinner

Published 15 April 2000

From Dennis Woodman

Debora MacKenzie’s refreshing approach to the recycling of animal excrement
and waste products into the human food chain
(18 March, p 45) prompts me to draw
your readers’ attention to a new project working to the same philosophy.

In the 19th century, the explosion of Britain’s urban population led to a
vigorous controversy about the lack of land for cemeteries and the introduction,
in the face of fierce opposition from “resurrectionists”, of cremation. Times
have changed, and now the opposition is to cremation itself as a source of gases
contributing to global warming and a waste of good protein.

I am working with the pet food industry to introduce legislation to enable
people, at the end of their lives, to donate their bodies to pet food
manufacturers. The human flesh thereby recycled will release thousands of tonnes
of grain, at present used in pet foods, for feeding less fortunate children
elsewhere in the world. It is right that the British, with their love of
animals, should set the rest of the world an example.

If any of your readers would like to write to me, I will send them a draft
clause for inclusion in their will, and a “Pet-meat” donor card to carry in
their wallet or handbag.

Kew, Surrey

Issue no. 2234 published 15 April 2000

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