HW # 55 - Culminating Project - Care of the Dead

Go for Green

It’s time to take responsibility for our remains, a euphemism for our dead bodies, our cadavers, our corpses, our carcasses. We have nothing to lose by leaving this earth without hurting it, do we?

Big Problems

In this country most of us are still buried. The problems with burials are:

We are using up valuable land for cemeteries, and cemeteries are running out of space. In fact, there are some places where you have to be buried vertically to be near your relatives. Also, many cemeteries are treated with pesticides and herbivores, poisons, that damage the environment.

In this country most of us are still embalmed. The problem with embalming is:

Most embalming fluid contains formaldehyde, which is extremely dangerous for the mortuary workers using it and is suspected as a cause of cancer, ALS, and problems with the nervous system. It also destroys for a while the microbes that help decompose the body

In this country most of us are put in caskets. The problem with caskets is:

Most caskets here are made of steel, and a lot of them have wood
veneers. They are not biodegradable. The ones made of wood destroy too many trees. Manufacturing them uses a lot of energy.

In this country many of us are put in vaults. The problem with vaults is:

Vaults are made of concrete, which is obviously not biodegradable. A lot of energy is also used to make the vaults.




Cost

The cost of an average funeral is $7,000. This is a lot of money for most people (not including us). Don’t you have better uses for that much money?

All of the above are designed to keep us looking good for a while longer when we are already an empty shell and especially to keep the earth with its worms and other creatures from eating us. But here’s the thing:

We are going to rot no matter what so why not rot in an earth-friendly way and go back to nature without dragging out the decomposition?

Without adding to the loss of resources, the use of too much energy and other pollutants, there are other ways – green ways – to lose the bodies. Sorry. We meant that there are other ways to leave this earth with dignity.
Why do we, Dirk Nowitski and Kevin Garnett, care?
According to the statistics,* there are 22,500 cemeteries in the U.S. that use up each year approximately:
30 million board feet (70,000 m³) of hardwoods (caskets)
90,272 tons of steel (caskets)
14,000 tons of steel (vaults)
2,700 tons of copper and bronze (caskets)
1,636,000 tons of reinforced concrete (vaults)
827,060 US gallons (3,130 m³) of embalming fluid, which most commonly includes formaldehyde.
(*Compiled from the Casket and Funeral Association of America, Cremation Association of North America, Doric Inc., The Rainforest Action Network, and Mary Woodsen, Pre-Posthumous Society)
At 6” 11” and 6” 9” we are going to use up a whole lot of the above, and this does noteven take into account all the energy that would be used. We would be using more that our share in a country that already uses more that its share of resources. But no one should feel left out. You shorties will still be causing trouble if you choose a typical burial - just a little less than we will.


Alternatives to typical burials (slow rotting):

Sky burial
A Sky burial used to be a typical Tibetan ritual. The human corpse is placed on a mountaintop (of which there are a lot in Tibet), cut in certain places, and presented as a feast to birds of prey, especially vultures. Since most Tibetans are Buddhists, the former person is having a rebirth so his or her body can return to nature. This is also a practical form of burial since the ground is too rocky for graves to be dug, and there are few trees to be burned for a cremation.


Sky burial site, Yerpa Valley



Skeletal remains of body after Vultures have fed.

A sky burial is probably free.





Cremation

Cremation is better for the environment than a typical burial involving embalming, a non-biodegradable casket, and a vault. It is also much cheaper.
Cremation costs from about $700 to $1,000, and the cheapest box for the remains is $20. but it does have a “carbon footprint” because a significant amount of fossil fuel is used to create the high temperatures needed to turn a body to ashes. According to the Trust for Natural Legacies, “You could drive about 4,800 miles on the energy equivalent of the energy used to cremate someone – and to the moon and back 83 times on the energy from all cremations in one year in the U.S.” Also, cremation causes mercury to enter the air from the coal fires but also from the burning of fillings in teeth. The Trust for Natural Legacies states that from 1,000 to 7,800 pounds of mercury goes into the air every year and one-fourth of it enters the ground and water.

Green burial

In a green burial the body is not embalmed. It is put in a biodegradable container and laid approximately three feet below the ground – deep enough so that it won’t be disturbed but not so deep that there won’t be enough oxygen to speed up decomposition. A place in a green cemetery with burial fees included costs about $1,000, but if you go to a non-profit nature preserve, it could be chaper. Ideally, it’s nice to be buried in a nature preserve because it is a protected habitat for plants and animals, and there won’t be any chemical fertilizers used or wasteful watering as is the case in cemeteries. Although a dead body has bacteria and viruses, they disappear for the most part soon after death. It would take many dead bodies near a water source to affect the safety of the water. As a precaution bodies are not buried near streams. In a natural green burial, bodies usually decay completely in 10 to 12 years. The climate and the soil affect how quickly decay happens.

Resomation

Resomation is a form of cremation that is friendlier to the environment because it uses 1/8 of the heat of a crematorium. The body is put into a steel chamber with potassium hydroxide and the high pressure applied turns the body into a powder. The dental remains can be removed so no mercury enters the air or ground or water. Usually the body powder is put into a coffin for the funeral. Resomation is more expensive than cremation because there are only resomators in six states, and they cost $440,000 each.


Promession

Promession is another form of cremation that is even friendlier to the environment than resomation. It involves freezing the body and then putting it into liquid nitrogen. It was developed by the Swedish biologist Susanne Wigh-Masak and is described in the book Stiff by Mary Roach. The body becomes extremely brittle, and when vibration is applied, it turns into an organic powder. Magnetism gets out the mercury from the dental remains. The powder is clean and has no smell and will turn into compost in 6 to 12 months. It costs about the same as a cremation.


Of all the greener alternatives to death, we favor plain and simple green burials. No embalming and no wake. We figure we can have passed out pictures of ourselves when we were at our best – not puffed up with embalming fluids so people can say how peaceful we look. When did we ever want to look peaceful?

The Sky burial has its appeal… But even though pictures aren’t allowed, someone in a helicopter would probably get a video of a bird eating our liver and put it all over You Tube.

It’s better not to be part of human wastefulness when going out of this world. Going back to nature and helping a plant or a tree grow, especially a tall tree, that’s the way to go.


Sources

“Green Burial: Choose to be Buried the Natural Way.” The New Ecologist June 16, 2010. May 14, 2011 .

“The Green Death: Funerals for the environmentally Conscious.” May 14, 2011 .

Roach, Mary. Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2003.

Sprey, Karen. “Resomation and corpse-composting :green alternatives to cremation and burial.” July 5, 2010. .

“What we do – Conservation Cemeteries.” Trust for Natural Legacies, Inc. May 14, 2011 .


Evaluations

After reading this flyer by Dirk and Kevin, I have to admit that a green burial sounds more appealing to me now than being cremated, and being buried in a nature preserve sounds better than being buried in a cemetery. If it’s winter and the ground is too hard, my second choice is to be frozen into organic powder by promession. I actually learned a lot from reading this.
Reed Morgan (brother)

Members of my family always get buried. I was planning to break the mold with cremation, but now I like the idea of a simple green burial (like the kind we gave our dog). I like the way you had Dirk Nowitski and Kevin Garnett write this. I wonder if they will end up having really expensive coffins when they die.
Gabe (friend)