A person’s final resting place could be the foundation of flowerbed or could feed the roots of the tree, or it can pose major environmental hazards through the continuation of a person’s carbon footprint even after the death!
Ever thought about that?
Death is a part of life and it has its environmental effects as well. The ritual of different types of burying or cremating a dead body is so deeply ingrained in religious and cultural history that there is no question on it, but they are far from environment friendly practices.
The environmental impacts of death is largely determined by the type of funeral and burial opted by the person or community. Apart from the Islamic burials, the process of preserving and sealing corpses into caskets and then plunging them into the ground is extremely unfriendly environmentally. Toxic chemicals from the embalming (It is the process of preserving a body to delay the natural break down of cells, which begins with death), burial, and cremation process leach into the air and soil, and expose the livings to potential hazards.
"The best way is to allow your body to feed the earth or ocean in a way that is sustainable for future generations", says Susan Dobscha, a professor and editor of a book about the green-burial industry, called "Death and a Consumer Culture”.
1. Embalming is the process of pumping chemical mixture of formaldehyde, phenol, methanol, and glycerine into the body through an artery to delay the body's rate of decay. This could be used for display purposes during funerals, long-distance transportation, or for use for medical or scientific research. It is also said to give the body a life-like appearance for public viewing.
Formaldehyde is a potential human carcinogen and can be lethal if a person is exposed to high concentrations. Its fumes can also irritate the eyes, nose, and throat. Phenol, similarly, can irritate or burn the flesh, and is toxic if ingested. Methyl alcohol and glycerine can irritate the eyes, skin, nose, and throat. According to an article published in the Berkeley Planning Journal, more than 800,000 gallons of formaldehyde are put into the ground along with dead bodies every year in the US. That is enough to fill one and a quarter Olympic-sized swimming pools each year.
The next reason that why these burial practices are bad for environment is many materials go into the burials. According to the Berkeley Planning Journal, conventional burials only in the US, every year use 30 million board feet of hardwoods, 2,700 tons of copper and bronze, 104,272 tons of steel, and 1,636,000 tons of reinforced concrete. The amount of casket wood alone is equivalent to about 4 million acres of forest.
2. Cremation: Burning the body into ashes to be kept in an urn or scattered into the water is called cremation which is practised by some religious cultures. Cremation is considered as less harmful than pumping a body full of formaldehyde and burying it on top of concrete, but there are still lots of environmental effects to consider. The process requires a lot of energy and creates air pollution by releasing hazardous chemicals into the atmosphere, including carbon monoxide, fine soot, sulphur dioxide, heavy metals, and mercury emissions. In contrast to a natural burial, in which a body is simply left to decompose in nature, cremated ashes are sterile and do not supply nutrients back into the earth.
Eco-friendly options for the burials do exist. For example:
3. Natural Burials: the process of interring a body in earth in a manner that allows it to decompose naturally. The process does not use vaults, traditional coffins, or toxic chemicals. Instead, bodies are wrapped in biodegradable shrouds and laid to rest where they can decompose more naturally. Bodies are buried six feet deep without a coffin, in an ordinary soil to aid the decomposition.
Without the embalming fluids, the body of an adult person normally takes eight to twelve years to decompose which is the minimum time for the body to decompose. However, if placed in a coffin the body can take many years longer, depending on type of wood used. For example, a solid oak coffin will highly slow down the process. There was a case where a body was exhumed in an oak coffin and it was found to still be in a state of decomposition some 50 years later. Along with that, a lot also depends on how deep the coffin is buried, the state of the soil and the local water.
Decomposition begins several minutes after the burial, with a process called autolysis, or self-digestion. According to the laws of thermodynamics, energy cannot be created or destroyed, only converted from one form to another, and the amount of free energy always increases. In other words, things fall apart, converting their mass to energy while doing so. Decomposition is one final morbid reminder that all matter in the universe must follow these fundamental laws. It breaks us down, equilibrating our bodily matter with its surroundings, and recycling it so that other living things can put it to use.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
There are several benefits of natural burials which are:
1. Elements that are present in the human body are present in lesser or greater quantity in the soil. It is more scientific to bury a dead body, as it easily gets decomposed and mixed in the soil.
2. There is no pollution unlike cremating the body which produces hazardous chemicals in the atmosphere.
3. When dead bodies are buried, besides the trees being saved, the surrounding land becomes fertile, and it improves the environment as it enriches the soil nutrients.
4. Burying dead bodies is very cheap. It hardly costs any money as compare to cremating or casket burials.
5. The land used for burying a dead body can be re-utilised for burying another body after a few years since the human body gets decomposed and mixed in the soil.
"People [who] choose to be buried in the friendly burial area are the people who want wildflowers blooming on their grave and butterflies fluttering about", says Larkspur Executive Director John Christian Phifer.
There is also a newer trend in natural burials that aims for even bigger ecological benefits. For example:
4. Capsula Mundi, which is an egg-shaped pod through which a buried corpse or ashes can provide nutrients to a tree planted above it. It is an egg-shaped pod, an ancient and perfect form, made of biodegradable material, where our departed loved ones are placed for burial. The bodies will be laid down in a fetal position in larger pods and the Capsula will then be buried as a seed in the earth. A tree, chosen in life by the deceased, will be planted on top of it and serve as a memorial for the departed and as a legacy for posterity and the future of our planet. Family and friends will continue to care for the tree as it grows. Cemeteries will acquire a new look and instead of the cold grey landscape, they will grow into vibrant woodlands.
5. The Burial Suit is made of organic cotton and lined with specialist mushroom spores, so a person buried in it will soon be covered in growing mushrooms. Their remains will feed the mushrooms, which quickly break down organic material and remove toxins from the environment, in turn delivering nutrients to the soil and surrounding plants.
We know that in the throes of grief, the environment might often be the furthest thing in families’ minds. But during a person’s life, if he/she tries to live Eco-friendly life then why the process of death should be any different. Its not likely for a person to discuss their body disposal method but, now, we have to when it poses major environmental hazards! I hope we take things serious in a light manner.... I hope we do....
*All pictures are taken from google.
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