Have you given your corpse much thought? I don’t mean to go all post mortem on you, but talk about the ultimate carbon footprint. For those of you concerned with your green legacy, you may want to take some time to consider your final leave behind. Let’s explore the options, shall we?

Traditional burial is a good place to start. Back to the earth, goin’ compost, food for Gaia.

According to CemetarySpot, each year 22,500 U.S. cemeteries sink about 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid (read: formaldehyde and other hazardous chemicals) six feet under. Meanwhile, buried caskets account for 90,272 tons of steel, 2,700 tons of copper and bronze, and more than 30 million board-feet of hardwoods. And here’s a fun fact: Casket manufacturers have made the EPA’s top-50 hazardous waste generators list, primarily due to their use of methyl and xylene in “the protective finish sprayed on the caskets exterior.” (Um, protection from”¦?)

And for those of you thinking about an above-ground approach, cremation and burial vaults account for about 1,636,000 tons of reinforced concrete and 14,000 tons of steel. In either case, land-use and transportation issues top off these not-so-eco-friendly end-of-life choices.

Then there’s cremation.

Now we’re really talking ashes to ashes. Burn me up, scatter me around, it’ll be just like nothing ever happened. You may be surprised to learn that a lot of people like this idea. Findtut notes: “75 percent of people in the U.K. are cremated after they die, while in the U.S. the figure has risen from 25 percent in 2000 to approximately 35 percent today.” But not so fast, green-dead wannabes: Each cremation produces about 330 pounds of CO2, of which about 220 pounds comes from burning the body and the coffin. Cremations also give off nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, mercury (dental fillings!), hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen chloride, non-methane volatile organic compounds, and other heavy metals. Some sources says that crematoria contribute 0.2 percent of the global emission of dioxins and furans.

Bottom line for the end of the line?

These usual ways to go leave something to be desired. But never fear, the “green burial” niche is booming, says Tonic. The site reports that “eco-friendly burial grounds are opening their gates around the country,” and that the Green Burial Council recently named almost 300 funeral homes that offer environmentally friendly check-out options, up from a mere 12 at the beginning in 2008.

Perhaps the simplest option for a green burial is just doing your best to mind your matter. Digital Journal quotes Cynthia Beal of The Natural Burial Company as saying that a body should be “buried in a simple container made of biodegradable material such as bamboo, wicker, or cardboard which allows the body to decompose and return to the earth gradually and naturally. In some cases the body may only be wrapped in a simple shroud, left to return to the earth in a natural way.”

Over in the chemistry department, however, other more interesting options are cropping up.

For example, there’s the new (unless you’re a Breaking Bad type) trend of alkaline hydrolysis, a.k.a. dissolving bodies with lye. This is a hot topic right now in California, where a new law allowing the funeral business to do this as a matter of routine is making its way through the legislature. In this process, explains the Fresno Bee, mortuaries can dissolve you (Did I say “you?” Sorry.), through a combination of water pressure, heat and alkalinity, a process nicely dubbed “bio-cremation.” The whole thing takes just a few hours and emits no pollution or greenhouse gases. Bones, however, “would not be dissolved by the process, but they would be pulverized or processed for placement into an urn for loved ones.” It’s good to be informed.

Another fun choice is being offered by a Glasgow-based company called Resomation, which has come up with an approach that uses less energy than cremation and emits less CO2 by dissolving a body in sodium hydroxide at about 350 degrees. (A well-known temp for you cooks out there. Yum.) According to Findhut, the procedure produces just about 150 pounds of CO2 per body (that’s less than half of that from “usual cremation”) and has been approved for use in five U.S. states, but not yet back home in the U.K.

Last up in today’s cheerful story is Cryomation, based in Woodbridge, U.K., which, in the spirit of cool Dr. Science experiment, simply freezes remains at -319 degrees Fahrenheit with the help of a little handy-dandy liquid nitrogen, then powders the body and discards any leftover metal. The remains are then dried in a vacuum and sterilized. That way – insert drum roll here – they can be used as fertilizer! This method emits just about 100 pounds of CO2  per body.

When it comes to a green afterlife, shop around. There are a number of different ways you can go. Oh, lord, stop me…

Image: Paul and Jill

The post Better Dying Through Chemicals: Environmentally Friendly Ways to Go appeared first on EcoSalon.

Will your years of good green living end with a natural, good green death?

It’s a sensitive topic – so sensitive, many of us can’t embrace it. I cringed some years back when my book group chose to read Mary Roach’s Stiff: Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. The last thing I wanted to do was cuddle up with a read about how to dispose of our bodies: donating organs to eager medical school students, cremation, wrapping remains in biodegradable burial shrouds before returning them to the earth. Still, I managed to trudge through it.

Stiff, published at the height of HBO’s Six Feet Under craze, introduced me to the notion of natural burials and got me thinking about such choices. You should consider them as well.

According to the Centre for Natural Burial in Canada, the modern concept for this alternative approach first began in the UK in 1993 and has since spread globally. A relatively new idea, it focuses on methods that conserve, sustain and protect the earth from which we came and shall return. In other words, your concern for the planet (driving a hybrid, sparing landfills of bad plastics, using reusable shopping bags) doesn’t have to die when your time has come.

The body is prepared for burial in a simple shroud or placed in a biodegradable casket made of locally harvested wood, wicker or recycled paper. No embalming chemicals are used to prepare the body, natural markers like shrubs and trees replace headstones, and burial grounds are often protected preserves in which the natural burial protects and restores nature. There’s no need for irrigation, herbicides or pesticides to sustain the habitat.

The benefits to the planet are obvious, but is it right for your family? “It’s a big leap for some and a thankful change for others,” observes Kathy Curry of the Fernwood Funeral Home in upscale and earthy Mill Valley, California. Fernwood’s natural burials are located on a diverse, 32-acre site adjacent to the Golden Gate National Recreation areas. “It really appeals to environmentalists and people looking to do something more simple, people who don’t like the excess of a big fancy casket and funeral.”

Indeed, the metal caskets and other excesses of conventional burials are taking a huge ecological toll on our planet, according to Joe Sehee of the Green Burial Council, considered the green standard for eco-friendly burial methods in the United States. “We are burying some 800,000 gallons of fluids known to contain carcinogens, along with enough metal each year to rebuild the Golden Gate Bridge and enough concrete to fill a two-lane highway,” he told me. “The lid is being lifted on what we are spending and wasting, and that is what we are trying to get away from.”

Sehee sees the concept moving into the mainstream quickly with supply having trouble keeping up with demand, including a surge in green cremation practices, up from 3% in the 1960’s to as high as 70% in parts of California and almost 50% nationally. “Most people don’t want to impede the process of regeneration by embalming and spending $5,000 on a box, which is what we have been doing over the last 100 years in the industry,” he says.

The recession could also increase the trend. At Fernwood, you might spend $7,500 on a natural burial while an ornate burial can cost well over $20,000. Curry points out that in the U.S., some plots alone sell for as much as $60,000.

Meantime, those opting for green should be careful, suggests Sehee, who warns some mortuaries falsely advertise chemical-free and healthy grasses, but are guilty of green washing. One reason his council was established was to keep the once underground movement of alternative burials well above board.

Image: batega

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