Conventional burial is a frequently overlooked environmental hazard. Wooden caskets currently require about 45 million board feet of hardwood lumber every year, although 75% of caskets are steel. "Vaults" are also frequent in some cemeteries, which keep the ground level, and are usually made up of over a ton of concrete. Finally, 3-6 gallons of formalin are used to embalm most corpses, which may leak out over time and contaminate groundwater supplies. In addition to all of the pollution being put into the ground, the manufacture of caskets also produces significant waste.
So the solution may be to add to one's will the request to be buried in a green cemetery, which is a cemetery that accepts biodegradable caskets, shrouds, or no body covering at all. Green conservation cemeteries also function as a land conservation tool as well.
Sign me up, though I'm not entirely sure I'd like to be buried at all. I wonder what the comparative carbon cost of being cremated in a cardboard container amounts to (other than quite a bit of alliteration).
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, cremation has it's own set of environmental costs. According to Boulder Country Green Burial:
ReplyDeleteCremation is only slightly less carbon-intensive than conventional burial, as it utilizes fossil fuels. Depending on the facility, cremation may also emit nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, mercury, hydrogen fluoride (HF), hydrogen chloride (HCI), NMVOCS, other heavy metals, and Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP).
How would we be able to sell this incentive to others. We live in an incredibly vain society, and to make this happen, and be a widely wanted thing, we'd need to make it appealing, and although biodegradable sounds great for a food carrier, or a coffee cup, it would make many people uncomfortable when it comes to talking about one's body. If one just mentioned the green cemetery aspect, and advertised new caskets made to be much more appealing!
ReplyDelete