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Swiss Company Compresses Cremated People into Diamonds

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Korey

Member
http://www.npr.org/2014/01/19/263128098/swiss-company-compresses-cremation-ashes-into-diamonds

Diamonds are supposed to be a girl's best friend. Now, they might also be her mother, father or grandmother.

Swiss company Algordanza takes cremated human remains and — under high heat and pressure that mimic the Earth — compresses them into diamonds.

Rinaldo Willy, the company's founder and CEO, says he came up with the idea a decade ago. Since then, his customer base has expanded to 24 countries.

Each year, the remains of between 800 and 900 people enter the facility. About three months later, they exit as diamonds, to be kept in a box or turned into jewelry.

Most of the stones come out blue, Willy says, because contains trace amounts of boron, an element that bone formation. Occasionally, though, a diamond pops out white, yellow or close to black – Willy's not sure why. Regardless, he says, "every diamond from each person is slightly different. It's always a unique diamond."

Most of the orders Algordanza receives come from relatives of the recently deceased, though some people make arrangements for themselves to become diamonds once they've died. Willy says about 25 percent of his customers are from Japan.

At between $5,000 and $22,000, the process costs as much as some funerals. The and machinery involved are about the same as in a lab that makes synthetic diamonds from other carbon materials.

...

It only takes about a pound of ashes to make a single diamond, Willy says. His company has created up to nine diamonds from one individual's ashes.

Algordanza isn't the only company blinging out the afterlife, either. An called LifeGem offers the same services, and there are a number of U.S. patents for similar procedures.

Most of the time, Willy says, people take the diamonds to a jeweler to be made into rings or pendants.

...
 

tino

Banned
I don't mind, if I want to carry a loved one with me all the time. I wouldn't tell other people though. It would creep you lots out.
 

Eusis

Member
At least these would seem to have some actual sentimental value.
And part of the reason the allure of diamonds is so dumb is that they're relatively common and are just made of carbon. In other words the only kind of jewel you could make out of human remains anyway.
 

injurai

Banned
I like the idea of becoming a tree

like the Pequeninos

5710595589_ed96a57c5a.jpg
 
And part of the reason the allure of diamonds is so dumb is that they're relatively common and are just made of carbon. In other words the only kind of jewel you could make out of human remains anyway.

I think there was a GAF thread about this. Wasn't De Beers the company that inflated the price of diamonds and began this whole trope of engagement rings?
 

Dryk

Member
I don't know if they started it, but they perpetuate it with a lot of dodgy shit.

"Synthetic diamonds are shit. I mean who wants a more perfect structure. Buy De Beers"

Seriously the fact that diamonds are still so valuable is dumb.
 

jts

...hate me...
-Oh John, yes I will marry you... wasn't that your grandma's?
-No, it was my grandma.

I will be here all week.
 

Dead Man

Member
"Synthetic diamonds are shit. I mean who wants a more perfect structure. Buy De Beers"

Seriously the fact that diamonds are still so valuable is dumb.

Pretty much. The fact that they want artificial diamonds to be marked is laughable. If people can't tell them apart... then there is no difference.
 

Leynos

Member
You can also have your ashes placed into fireworks, shot into space, mixed with cement then turned into artificial marine reefs, etc. You can actually do a lot with cremains.
 

NastyBook

Member
I'd rather have my remains snorted by a trust fund baby as opposed to being adorned on his trophy stepmother's left finger.
 

terrisus

Member
While the idea sounds odd on an initial reading... If one is going to have someone cremated anyway, don't really think this is that much stranger than scattering the ashes on a lake or a park, or kept in a jar on a shelf or something (my wife has the cremated remains of one of her old dogs on a shelf. I'm sorry, I just think that's creepy. But, to each their own I suppose). So, if all those things are fine, why not in a piece of jewelry?
 

Clydefrog

Member
hopefully by the time I die, we'll have figured out a way to turn me into something cooler like a... cooler or something

put yo drinks in me
 
Eh this is old. Anyways I have no desire to do this when I die. Just cremate my body and spread the ashes somewhere not unpleasant.
 

davepoobond

you can't put a price on sparks
i actually wouldn't mind this, as sad as it is to actually think i can be compressed into something only semi-valuable.
 

BPoole

Member
Hmm guess I'll have to make a decision whether I want to be a diamond or a tree once I die. Both are better than occupying a hole in the ground to slowly decompose
 

dejay

Banned
Thread title gave me an evil James Bond movie vibe but the article isn't that bad if they have permission to do this

I was thinking of a James Bond villain. Better than Goldfinger, he turns all his enemies into diamonds and wears them for jewellery.
 
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