Our funeral practices have a high carbon footprint. Becca Warner explores how she could plan her own more environmentally-friendly burial.
Not many of us like talking about death. It's dark, and sad, and prone to throwing us into an existential spiral. But the uncomfortable truth is that, as someone who cares about the environment, I realised I needed to stop ignoring the reality of it. Once we're gone, our bodies need somewhere to go – and the ways that we typically burn or bury bodies in the West come at a scary environmental cost.
There is nothing wrong with looking at alternatives to burial or cremation, but using environmental politics as a starting point doesn't help.
Most people in the UK (where I'm from) are cremated when they die, and burning bodies isn't good for the planet. The stats make wince-worthy reading. A typical cremation in the UK is gas-powered, and is estimated to produce 126kg (278lb) CO2 equivalent emissions (CO2e) – about the same as driving from Brighton to Edinburgh. In the US, the average is even higher, at 208kg (459lb) CO2e. It's perhaps not the most carbon-intensive thing we'll do in our lives – but when the majority of people in many countries opt to go up in smoke when they die, those emissions quickly add up.
Cremation sounds better and better as the alternatives become quite ghoulish.
Recompose has so far composted around 300 bodies. The process happens over the course of five to seven weeks. Lying in its specialised vessel, the body is surrounded by wood chips, alfalfa and straw. The air is carefully monitored and controlled, to make it a comfortable home for the microbes that help speed up the body's decomposition. The remains are eventually removed, having transformed into two wheelbarrows-worth of compost. The bones and teeth – which don't decompose – are removed, broken down mechanically, and added to the compost. Any implants, pacemakers or artificial joints are recycled whenever possible, says Spade.
Cremation sounds better and better as the alternatives become quite ghoulish.
Recompose has so far composted around 300 bodies. The process happens over the course of five to seven weeks. Lying in its specialised vessel, the body is surrounded by wood chips, alfalfa and straw. The air is carefully monitored and controlled, to make it a comfortable home for the microbes that help speed up the body's decomposition. The remains are eventually removed, having transformed into two wheelbarrows-worth of compost. The bones and teeth – which don't decompose – are removed, broken down mechanically, and added to the compost. Any implants, pacemakers or artificial joints are recycled whenever possible, says Spade.
12 comments:
Mrs DiscoveredJoys and I have already bought and paid for natural burials. Unpreserved bodies in natural wickerwork coffins buried in a field with only a low plaque, and possibly a tree, to mark the spot(s).
Cremate the bodies with the fierce incandescent heat of an air-source heat pump.
But composting gives off CO2 too! Presumably the way that's closest to net zero is the way of the Caribs and Maoris.
DJ - if you choose a yew tree, your resting place could be marked for centuries.
Sam - ha ha. That could become the crock pot method.
dearieme - burial at sea probably doesn't give off much CO2 either.
"burial at sea probably doesn't give off much CO2 either": true, but it doesn't have the indirect benefit of reducing cow farts.
The joke would have been better if I'd said "but it doesn't have the indirect benefit of reducing pig farts".
dearieme - the joke is lost on me but I have the impression that it may be gruesome.
The Maoris and Caribs were cannibals. The Maori word for humans for eating translates as, so they say, "long pig".
dearieme - ah, I thought it may be cannibalism but I'd forgotten about "long pig".
While visiting a remote highland village, I met a recently arrived settler who was lobbying the local authorities to let her have a ‘sky burial’, Zoroastrian style, where her remains, in the absence of a Tower of Silence, would be left on a treetop platform to feed the local golden eagles.
Should perhaps have added that the woman in question was not a Zoroastrian but a devotee of Chris Packham and keen to do her bit for endangered species.
Also, I’ve just remembered this rather unsettling quote from a 2010 news story about Birmingham City Council’s financial woes:
“The council has also identified several areas where it can increase its revenue. These include looking at what can be done to increase revenues at its cemeteries and crematoria...”
Macheath - the local authorities could tell that recently arrived settler that she is behaving like a colonialist, which should confuse her. They could also suggest that the eagles might be messy eaters and drop bits of her all over the village which wouldn't be nice.
Birmingham City Council increasing its revenue from cemeteries and crematoria sounds interesting. Would they charge by weight?
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