Living Modestly and Dying Modestly
Adbusters Magazine
You proudly commute to work by bicycle - rain, sleet and hail be damned. You converted your back lawn into an heirloom vegetable garden, and your front lawn into a greywater-fed sanctuary for native plant species. YOU registered for carbon offsets rather than kitchen gadgets for your green wedding, and you fed your guests local, organic, vegan meals when they arrived.
Now, it’s finally time for you to check out. But after a life of commitment to sustainable living, are you really going to have your corpse pumped full of toxic embalming fluids. prettied up with a thick pancake of makeup, and plopped into the ground with hundreds of pounds of stainless steel, fibreglass, plastic laminate and concrete?
Particularly in North America, the “death care” industry strives to present its service es as the only choice for respectful, traditional mourning. Yet most of these funereal trappings from embalming to grave liners to hermetically sealed caskets - are pure twentieth century. How about saving some resources- not to mention a bunch of cash - by doing things the real old-fashioned way: no funeral homes, no formaldehyde, and just a simple all-wood. wicker or unbleached cardboard box. All are increasingly popular and, contrary to what some funeral directors might tell you, legal almost everywhere.
Your safest bet for a green eternity? Wrapped in a biodegradable shroud and deposited in a “natural burial” preserve, of which there are already 200 in the UK and 5 in the US. Native flora and fauna will be allowed to colonise your gravesite, the presence of which will legally protect the land from development in perpetuity.