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The Eco-Afterlife

By Gregory Dicum, Grist.org. Posted August 5, 2006.


Some earth-conscious folks are eschewing toxic embalming fluid and hardwood coffins for a more natural kind of burial.
080606_story
The Eco-Afterlife

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"I'd prefer to be put in the ground, under a tree," says Joe Sehee, contemplating his inevitable demise. "But I don't want to go in the ground with anything, I just want to be buried in a simple pine box or shroud, and that's it."

If Sehee has given his preferences a lot of thought lately, it's not that he's planning to shuffle off this mortal coil any more imminently than the rest of us -- it's just that, as executive director of the Green Burial Council, it's his job.

The "anything" Sehee wants to avoid going into the ground with is the embalming fluid, concrete, steel, and hardwoods that typically get buried along with the dead. For the past four years, he has been seeking a way to bring environmental consciousness to the "death-care" industry. Now the Green Burial Council is unveiling the first U.S. certification for eco-burials, a move that Sehee hopes will harness the power of the $25 billion death-care industry -- which oversees 1.8 million burials in the U.S. each year -- in the service of conservation.

"I've talked to a couple thousand consumers over the last four years, and I know what's driving them [to look into green burials]," Sehee says. "Allowing people to feel as though their last act on earth contributes to a positive purpose connects them in an almost religious way to this concept. It makes people's eyes sparkle."

The new certification standards will indeed help consumers plan their earthly end. But they'll also help the conservation community. Sehee, currently helping to establish a green cemetery near Santa Fe as part of an eco-development managed by the Commonweal Conservancy, hopes his efforts will eventually protect a million acres around the world.

Death-Care Be Not Proud


While there's been a buzz about green burials for several years, the concept has yet to catch on widely. "There have been dozens and dozens of articles about it," says Ron Hast, publisher of industry magazines Mortuary Management and Funeral Monitor, "but it is not a trend. It is a cottage industry that cemetarians do not find worth the investment to provide."

Indeed, the two most prominent green cemeteries -- Ramsey Creek Preserve in South Carolina and Fernwood in Northern California -- have performed fewer than 200 green burials between them in the past five years.

But according to Sehee, there's a major obstacle: the death-care industry itself. The prevailing marketplace makes it hard for consumers -- who have enough trouble picking paper or plastic -- to evaluate their end-of-life options, especially if they haven't planned ahead. A bewildering array of options, regulations, and misinformation awaits, compounded by the emotional circumstances in which such decisions are usually made.

That's where the new standards, developed in consultation with consumer advocates, land trusts, and landscape architects, come in. Sehee hopes to do for death-care what organic standards and Fair Trade certification have done for the supermarket. "We're making it easy for consumers to distinguish between environmentally and consumer-friendly providers and those who are not operating that way," he says. "That, to me, is the crux of this issue."

The Council has issued two sets of guidelines, for Natural Burial Grounds and Conservation Burial Grounds. The first outlines requirements for eco-friendly cemeteries, governing everything from visitation to landscaping. It bans toxic embalming, vaults, and landscape-inappropriate monuments, and requires biological evaluation of the site, habitat restoration with native plants, and the establishment of an endowment fund to ensure the burial ground continues to adhere to the standard.

But it's the second type of certification that takes things in a new direction. The Conservation Burial standards help land trusts and other groups use a combination of Natural Burial certification and conservation easements to further their stewardship mission. The Green Burial Council -- which includes a board member who's a senior vice president at the Trust for Public Land -- believes certification has the potential to not only bring in revenue, but also to help ensure that land remains protected. "Burial is another layer of protection," Sehee says. "It consecrates the land and offers another barrier to development."

Ted Harrison, founder and president of the Commonweal Conservancy, says conservation burial has been under discussion within the land-trust community for the past decade, but without standards, land trusts haven't had the confidence to undertake it on their own. "The standards ensure a better grounding," he says, "a level of integrity that gives us a higher level of confidence than if we were trying to figure it out on our own."

Facing Facts



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Now I know what to do!
Posted by: Samantha Vimes on Aug 5, 2006 3:32 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
For a long time I was thinking cremation, to avoid the waste of resources and space in a typical burial. But in recent times, the worries of global warming made getting crisped seem even worse. Who needs to removed through the burning of fuel to make more heat?

Good old decomposition is fine when it's allowed. I will be looking into this and making sure my spouse and family knows what I have in mind.

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» RE: Now I know what to do! Posted by: deaudonnee
» RE: Now I know what to do! Posted by: BlueStateBitch
dust to dust
Posted by: rsaxto on Aug 5, 2006 3:56 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It's dust to dust however you do it but a natural way is better for the earth that sustains us all.

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yuppie fake-liberals care more about green coffins than the working poor who have no healthcare
Posted by: rebel_pig on Aug 5, 2006 4:59 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Well, la dee dah! Yuppies and wannabees can conform to their green-religious beliefs now. Ain't that great! Yet tens of millions of working poor Americans have no healthcare when they would have it in any other western nation.

But at least our economy will be that much more boosted by the sale of environmentally friendly coffins.

And the rightwingers say that the American Left is irrelevant. How could they think such a thing!?

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» Excellent point Posted by: nickptar
» I influence the children. Posted by: rebel_pig
Way to Go!
Posted by: peachmcd on Aug 5, 2006 6:05 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I've never wanted to have any more than a shroud between my body and the earth. I always thought formaldehyde would make it harder to push up healthy daisies. Does that make me a 'wannabe'? I'm no yuppie (rofl!) just another working person who longs for a dignity after death that's not available to poor folk in this life.

I was always told that state laws forbade the sort of burial I longed for, and was so happy when I saw an episode of 6 Feet Under that mentioned the concept of Green Burial. This article, and the certification being developed, are bringing my last desire on earth closer and closer to fulfillment. I'll be calling the Land Trusts in my area to see if they've considered Conservation Burial as a 'layer of protection'. Thank you!

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An eco-friendly way to be buried do exist...
Posted by: TechSwede on Aug 5, 2006 6:33 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
... here in Sweden. A female swedish scientist have gotten a patent on a way to bury people more eco-friendly. The procedure is as follows. The body of the decised is lowered into a bath of liquid nitrogen and frozen rock solid. Then they use a ultrawave frequency to shatter the body into dust and making it easy to remove any plombings and metall implants. Afterwards you are swept up and put in a bag to be used for example as fertilzer for a special plant or tree or scattered over an aera.

There are many advantages of this metod, first and foremost it uses less energy than cremation, plus the bonus is that you do not directly contribute to global warming. The second is that the remaints are easier to be absorbed by plant-life where you put the dust. By being cremated you do not help plants or trees. Beeing buried six foot under doesn't help nature either, you are to far down to be any help post compostante. Of course their is the energy-consumption of making liquid nitrogen and the ultrawaves to produce. But the bath can be reused.

The time when I will have read my last book, then this is the burial for me.

The company's web page:
Promessa
Article at BBC:
Sweden set for freeze-dry burials
An article in 'Science and Spirit':
Body and Soil

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Ah, OK.
Posted by: coldeye on Aug 5, 2006 7:02 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This is Saturday Night Live, right?

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» RE: Ah, OK. Posted by: Wacre
» RE: Ah, OK. Posted by: Suz
It'll be a Rip Off, just like all Eco solutions!
Posted by: sirossisofliver on Aug 5, 2006 7:32 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Sounds great,....but like all other eco/green/organic solutions, it will cost the consumer more than twice what a conventional solution would cost.

No, I'll stick with the Neptune Society: Cremation $1,700.00 inclusive of collection of the body, and all relevant paperwork.

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another aspect
Posted by: mwildfire on Aug 5, 2006 7:34 AM   
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Aside from the environmental advantages of "green" burials, people who choose to do their death care themselves can reap two other rewards: saving thousands of dollars, and coping with a painful inevitability in a connected way that has meaning, and thus eases the pain.
I learned about this when a neighbor died suddenly a few years ago. I had taken a class in Death and Dying, and thus knew, and had passed on to my neighbors, the fact that in West Virginia it's legal to bury your own. When Ted suddenly died at dawn, Sara knew what she had to do, and found that she was not alone. One friend made a coffin in a few hours; neighbors cancelled work or school and helped dig the grave. Once the county signed off on it, after dark, we all helped lower the coffin and cover it while singing Amazing Grace and Will the Circle Be Unbroken, and reading a Buddhist prayer. It was so much more real and wholesome than the commercial funeral of my father-in-law! I wrote an article about it so more people would realize they have options--but finally gave up on placing it. I'm sure the editors decided it was just "too unpleasant a subject." But it does help to be prepared in advance, to discuss wishes with your loved ones. Taking care of your own is legal in most states. The book that tells what the laws of all 50 states are is Lisa Carlson's Taking Care of the Dead: Your Final Act of Love. Likely you can find it in your library. Check it out. Yes, it's unpleasant--but every one of us has to die, and most of us will have to face someone else's death at least once first. If you talk about it and make decisions now, you won't have to cope with decision-making on what may well be the worst day of your life.

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» RE: another aspect Posted by: aurelia
Baha'i Faith Burial Laws
Posted by: Crusader Rabbit on Aug 5, 2006 7:47 AM   
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When I read about the wish to be planted under a tree I felt like someone had been reading my mind. That had been my desire since I was a child. I have now attended the burial of many family and friends and have found the embalming, concrete liners, etc. to be horrendous intrusions into what should be a return to the Earth.

I found out from a friend that the Baha'i Faith has some burial laws that include some of the eco-responsible points raised here. The Baha'i burial laws mandate the shroud be of white cotton or silk and the casket of hardwood or stone (to honor the body that had been the Temple of the Soul). Embalming and cremation are forbidden.

Personally, I had always thought a clean, well-used cotton sheet and a simple pine box were sufficient but the rationale for the law is to honor the temporary home of the soul and that makes since to me on philosophical grounds.

I always thought being placed into the earth where a tree, rose bush or garden grew over me was the most soothing image.

I think the idea of using easement lands is great. When one considers the huge numbers of plots needed just to bury the baby boomers in addition to the huge immigrant influx and our own blossoming birth rate more land is needed.

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Too Late.
Posted by: monkeywrench on Aug 5, 2006 8:42 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
How curious it is that we handle a corpse so gently, make it look its best, preserve it for as many years as possible, give it a ceremony, or at least recognition of significance, then put it in a luxurious resting place (with locks, no less) and finally, commit it to the Earth inside a concrete vault for further protection. Oh, what care and devotion we bestow upon people after they're dead.

How sad for us all that society seldom provided the same protection, care and devotion when they were alive.

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» RE: Too Late. Posted by: aurelia
Hardwoods Not Bad
Posted by: bperkins on Aug 5, 2006 9:23 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The subtitle equating hardwoods with environmental externatilities is absurd. Why are hardwoods not natural? Wood is one of the most abundant natural materials on earth. We need to harvest, use, recycle and then reuse it sustainably. Substituting wood for petroleum-derived materials (ie: plastic, steel) releases far less greenhouse gases not to mentioned the CO2 locked in the wood itself. The enviros need to wake up to the benefits of wood utilization. The forest products industry needs to recognize the valid points of the enviro agenda and "green" itself.

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» RE: Hardwoods Not Bad Posted by: bornxeyed
» RE: Hardwoods Not Bad Posted by: bperkins
Read Jessica Mitford, folks....
Posted by: morticia on Aug 5, 2006 9:55 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Her classic THE AMERICAN WAY OF DEATH exposes the funeral industry and all its avarice. It was written forty years ago, but it's totally timely still, as well as darkly comic and hugely informative. Embalming, open-casket funerals, insanely expensive coffins, necro-cosmetology, concrete vaults, fancy hearses and all the rest of it came into being for one reason: Big bucks. Mitford was the best and funniest muckraker ever, and it's because of her book that the funeral industry was pretty much forced to start offering pine boxes and low-cost cremations. They even named one of the cheap coffins after her: The Jessica.

Also recommended: THE LOVED ONE by Evelyn Waugh, either the book or the movie made from the book!

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The way to go
Posted by: TallAndFUrry on Aug 5, 2006 10:39 AM   
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All my life I've felt that when I die I would like my body left out in the open in some desolate place to be eaten by carrion. What better use of fresh meat! It was a pleasent surprise to see exactly this done in the movie "Mountain Patrol". There the Tibetian monks washed the departed's body then chopped it into chunks for the vultures patiently waiting outside. This is called a 'sky burial'.

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» RE: The way to go Posted by: aouie01
» Don't do us any favors Posted by: coldeye
Re: The Way To Go
Posted by: morticia on Aug 5, 2006 10:45 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
You can have your wish exactly--donate your corpse to that place in Tennessee where they conduct forensics experiments. Bodies are left to decompose under all kinds of conditions similar to those under which murder victims are dumped--in plastic garbage bags, in the trunks of cars, in water, or just lying there on the ground.

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» RE: e: The Way To Go Posted by: mtnwitch
» RE: e: The Way To Go Posted by: owleyes
» RE: e: The Way To Go Posted by: morticia
» RE: The Way To Go Posted by: Domokun
Zoroastrianism - Vulture meal
Posted by: aouie01 on Aug 5, 2006 11:13 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
From Wikipedia:
-------------
Death and burial: Religious rituals related to death are all concerned with the person's soul and not the body. Zoroastrians believe that on the fourth day after death, the human soul leaves the body and the body remains as an empty shell. Traditionally, Zoroastrians disposed of their dead by leaving them atop open-topped enclosures, called Towers of Silence, or Dokhmas. Vultures and the weather would clean the flesh off the bones, which were then placed into an ossuary at the center of the Tower. Fire and Earth were considered too sacred for the dead to be placed in them. While this practice is continued in India by some Parsis, it had ended by the beginning of the twentieth century in Iran. In India, burial and cremation are becoming increasingly popular alternatives.
--------------
Sincerely,
Aouie

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» An Eco-Feast Posted by: coldeye
A false dichotomy
Posted by: Torgo on Aug 5, 2006 11:39 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
So far I've read only comparisons between the "mainstream" form of burial and the minimalist alternative, along with some posters' advocacy of open-air decompensation.

What I advocate is donating one's remains to science, so that medical students and other scientists-in-training can learn from one's body. That's a far more noble pupose than feeding some non-human animals with one's flesh.

I say this as a cardiac patient whose life was saved one year ago, not by "Mother Earth" nor by "God", nor the "power of prayer", but only by the skills and knowledge of the EMTs and MDs at the University of Michigan who worked and studied to acheive their competence.

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» RE: A false dichotomy Posted by: morticia
Cannibalism - cruelty free meat.
Posted by: aouie01 on Aug 5, 2006 11:44 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I sometimes entertain the idea of being eaten upon death, but am concerned that one or more of the people that I make such an arrangement with may do some thing to have their meal available sooner.
One of the reasons is similar to a lot of others just wanting their bodies to be decomposed / consumed by other earthly creatures in a natural way. But, cannibalism amongst humans is probably not as natural. The reason for considering that, is to promote vegetarianism (veganism). I have always been grossed out by most meats on any table. Part of the yuck factor is the smell (that I never learned to like), and part of it is the thought of the cruelty behind it. The media frenzy over a cannibalistic funeral could raise the awareness of the similarity between all flesh, and promote not eating animals (including humans) (at least till they die for reasons other than consuming them). While it is true that dead bodies may be more disease ridden than living bodies, anyone who is concerned about it and still consumes factory farmed meat, should research the level of well being amongst factory farmed animals. Anyways, I don't think the FDA would approve of consuming human flesh. So, whoever wants to explore this may have to do so about 12 nautical miles off the coast or ... use your imagnination (unwise to suggest questionable activities in a public forum). Hopefully human meat will remain free and not be commercially exploited.
Sincerely,
Aouie

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» Am I married to you? Posted by: owleyes
Green burials are okay if cemetery space is recycled
Posted by: cthelyt on Aug 5, 2006 12:46 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
IMO, it is wasteful even in a Green context for land to be the exclusive preserve of a small group of people. There are six billion people on the planet, and if everyone had Green burials, where would that leave future generations unless they could be buried in the same spaces?

I still think direct cremation is the most efficient when the whole picture is taken into account. One can have a memorial service or do without it; one can have one's ashes scattered or placed in an urn; one can put that urn either in a mausoleum or on someone else's shelf or table. In any event, after a generation or two, no one will be around who actually remembers the deceased, and in the case of Green burials, that should free up previously used burial plots for reuse.

Also, with regard to cemetery deeds, read the fine print. Before my mother died, she gave me the "deed" to the plot containing her parents, which allows three people to be buried in it. Title, however, was not transferred to the holder of the "deed." Title was clearly reserved to the archdiocese, which owned and operated the cemetery. People were buying only the right to be buried in a given plot, not title to the plot itself, meaning that at some future date the title holder could remove the remains and do who knows what with them if no descendants claimed them. Another reason to forgo burial, I think. I don't know how universal this practice is with regard to cemetery "deeds," but maybe the Green cemeteries operate differently.

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Just throwing out another option...
Posted by: nickptar on Aug 5, 2006 2:14 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Freezing. Granted, it might not be quite as environmentally friendly as a green burial, but it doesn't look like it could be any worse than standard burial (liquid nitrogen is cheap), and it's a small price to pay for the possibility of coming back...

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Mankind thinks it has evolved so much...
Posted by: electriclady281 on Aug 5, 2006 3:43 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Then why are we still copying the ancient Egyptians in their attempt to achieve immortality? What is the sense of an expensive, upholstered, lead-lined casket? I've been interested in Green burial since before it was called that. If not available when/where I die, cremation's fine, as I doubt that the Swedish way will catch on because people basically don't want to face their own death even as they seem to have no compuctions against sending others to theirs.

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Just leave me out with the garbage
Posted by: Praxis on Aug 5, 2006 4:17 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Virtually any greem special treatment of the body will generate more environmental externalities than just putting a corpse in a plastic bag and leaving it out with the garbage on Friday morning to be carted to the dump. "Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!"

As someone who has tried to figure out how to dispose of a whole warehouse full of stuff and taken many, many truck loads of various materials to assorted recycling facilities I've concluded that so much of "recycling" is just an effort to make ourselves FEEL better, but actually bad for the environment, particularly efforts to treat most plastics and EPS. And I have to laugh when yuppie scum drink bottled water imported from Fiji at great financial and environmental cost and then get bent our of shape if you just toss the container in the waste paper basket. If you really want to save the environment, just pour yourself a glass of tap water, you pampered, self-indulgent and self-righteous prig.

A big compost heap would be an OK solution, but it seems a pity to waste so much high grade protein. Folks don't want 'soylent green' in their food chain, so we can't just slop the pigs with our loved ones. I like the Tibetan solution of leaving bodies on a mountain to feed vultures and other scavengers. Since we are ALL such a terrible drain on the environment when we're alive, it would good to do something nice for the wild life in death at least. Besides, hyenas are people too.

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Six Feet Under
Posted by: owleyes on Aug 5, 2006 5:57 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
There were a couple episodes that dealt with this. Nate was always a big hippie--he buried Lisa's mangled remains under a tree, then I think his family did the same with him. I really miss those guys. That was the best show ever.

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» RE: Six Feet Under Posted by: morticia
More bodies that they can use...
Posted by: carcinoid112 on Aug 6, 2006 2:21 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The main problem with donating bodies for medical research is that some places, at some times, have more bodies than they need, can use, or can store. To actually do what my Grandfather's will stated, we had to pay a $25 a day storage fee until the designated receiver would take his body, and they only took it on the condition that we pay for the shipping, and the eventual disposal. (They wanted us to arrange to have the remains, post-use, picked up and disposed of.) Thus, at the time they were through, I had to scrounge up $750 to pay for transportation and a small "box" to put what was left into a cemetary where people from my OTHER grandparents side were buried. Still had to buy the plot and pay for 'opening' the grave, too. All the cousins were SURE it was handled, that the medical school would take care of it...HAH! Check your local designated receiver of donated bodies, folks. They're often overloaded and can get a bit picky. And pricey.

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this is similar to Muslim burial practice
Posted by: sfdenizen on Aug 6, 2006 4:27 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I come from a Muslim background, and this idea sounds exactly like Muslim burial rituals which have been around since the 6th century C.E. After death, we wash the body thoroughly, wrap in it two large swaths of unstitched white cloth (no embalming) and bury it as soon as possible (no later than 48 hours) without a coffin. The body is not laid to rest six feet under, but usually 3-4 feet, so it decomnposes faster with all the microbes in the soil. No elaborate headstone is placed as a marker, just a simple stone tablet or none at all. I find this this to be a much more ecological way to bury the dead, as well as acknowledging that the body is just a temporary vehicle for the soul, its elements returning to the earth from which it was nourished.

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flapdoodle
Posted by: flapdoodle on Aug 6, 2006 5:55 PM   
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Bryant Logan wrote a great little book called "Dirt; The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth" where he tells us about natures highly efficient undertakers. They are micro-organisms that, he says, exist in all soil types and completely consume all but the bones of any animal that is simply buried in the ground. Their presence ensures that none of the bad organisms that we would ordinarily worry about in this situation can result.
So it seems that the most primitive method of burial is also the most ideal in terms of cost, environment, etc. Of course, for that reason alone it will probably remain illegal.

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Sounds Good to me.
Posted by: Artkansas on Aug 7, 2006 1:57 PM   
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I'd rather push daisies literally than figuratively when I'm dead. It's nice to think of my energy going directly back. Keeping a corpse around for years is kind of creepy when you think about it.

My ex and I did this for the canaries we had as they died. It seemed so fitting for soon they were back in the branches of a tree.

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