Dying to be Green
Do You Realise? Blog
One of my greatest pet peeves is the absolutely ridiculous misuse of land for people to be buried in metal boxes in the ground. I’ve always said I wanted to be cremated, although now I wonder about the air pollution caused by crematoriums.
The business of death is an incredibly wasteful industry. Tons of steel, wood, and plastics; massive amounts of chemicals; and millions of square miles of now useless land are just some of the hazards of dying the traditional way. However, there are all sorts of ways to divert our remains (or, rather, cremains) away from either the metal vault or the urn. We can be made into diamonds, added to coral reefs, launched into space, or made into fireworks to be shot at a memorial service. The inventor of Frisbee golf had his ashes made into Frisbees, and Marvel Comics editor Mark Gruenwald had his ashes incorporated into ink for the comic Squadron Supreme. Any of these options, in my opinion, are far superior to the common methods of burial.
Yesterday, in the newest issue of the pap that is People magazine (a total guilty pleasure, but one that is recycled after use, of course), I was reading about a greener burial process, as highlighted by Ramsey Creek Preserve, the United States’ first green cemetery. I admit it: I am fascinated by this idea.
At eco-cemeteries, one’s body is not pumped full of formaldehyde; it is simply refrigerated until interment. The body is not placed in a dizzyingly expensive wood, metal, and plastic coffin lined with pretentious shiny satin; it is wrapped in a simple cotton shroud and placed in a simple, biodegradable untreated wood box for burial. The box is not dropped into a huge concrete or steel vault in the ground, but into the ground itself. There are no outrageous tombstones; there are usually trees or bushes planted, or an indigenous stone can be engraved. The cemetery itself is more a nature preserve than morbid reminder of death; the cemetery celebrates the life surrounding it, rather than focuses of the dead. The whole process is designed to respect the whole ashes-to-ashes-dust-to-dust concept. (Regardless of this verse being read at almost every funeral ever held, traditional burials are designed to hinder this process as much as possible.) This, my friends, seems to be a fine and fiscally feasible alternative to traditional burial, and a beautiful dual use of land as well.
We’re all going to die. But are we all going to continue our environmentally responsible attitudes into death? (This, of course, includes being responsible organ donors, which will be another topic for another day.)
http://lorivillarreal.typepad.com/do_you_realize/2007/06/dying-to-be-gre.html