How to Dispose of a Body (for the Environmentalist)

A few weeks ago, I had an engaging conversation about life after death, or rather, the life of a dead body. Although a lot of us make a real effort to be eco-conscious in life, i.e. turn off the lights, use public transportation, reuse, recycle, etc., we forget about what happens afterward.

The AVERAGE funeral in the US has a price tag of nearly $7,000. This includes everything (i.e. coffin, plot of land, embalming, cremation, transportation, funeral services, etc.).  Environmentally speaking, it has been estimated that "Americans bury more metal each year than was used to make the Golden Gate Bridge and enough concrete to build a two-lane highway from New York to Detroit... More than 800,000 gallons of the [embalming fluid] are interred... annually, most of it containing carcinogenic formaldehyde." Cremation isn't much better. "The average cremation produces about 250 pounds of CO2 equivalent, or about as much as a typical American home generates in six days." (Slate)

Death is one of those untouchable subjects that is not only scary and heartbreaking, but also closely tied to religion and tradition. Talking about it can be offensive. I don't think it should be, and there are others who agree.

Let's avoid our potential post-humus environmental impact and plan for our futures. Here are some of our options:


1. Conventional Burial

In addition to the use of toxic embalming fluids, conventional burials require a significant plot of land. Coffins are placed in cement encasements to prevent degradation, which can be either good or bad. Although it's not a serious problem yet in the US, cemetery space shortages are occuring in places around the world. Back in 2007, BBC published this. Furthermore, burial is actually MORE carbon intensive than cremation, mainly due to cemetery maintenance, i.e. lawn mowing, pesticides, etc.. To make conventional burial more sustainable, consider wood coffins without the cement encasements so that the body is allowed to naturally compose. Find a funeral home that will refrigerate a body, rather than embalm it, before burial.  Also, consider natural burial (#4).

Price: $5,000 on the lower end.

Avaiability: Very common.

2. Cremation

Cremation, although better than conventional burial, is energy intensive and still has a very large carbon footprint. There are two types of cremation, incineration and traditional cremation. Incineration is when the body is put into a furnace and burned at almost 1,000C. With traditional cremation, the body is burned in the open on a funeral pyre. In India, the average person's carbon footprint may be greater in death than in life. One way to reduce the footprint of traditional cremation is to create a pyre structure requiring less wood, and  Vinod Agarwal says he can reduce it by 60%.

Price: The lower end is around $500.

Availability: Very common.

Funeral in India (on a wood pyre)

3. Resomation (recently coined as aquamation)

This past week Time published an article on an alternative to burial and cremation: aquamation. Ok, I'll admit, the name is a little market-y. It was orignally known as resomation and has been around for a while, mostly as a means of disposing of bodies  "donated to science". The body is put in a stainless steel pot filled with water and a strong potassium hydroxide (KOH) solution and heated to roughly 95C for four hours. Flesh and tissue dissolve, leaving a basic solution and softened bone, which is then ground up and given to relatives. No tissue particles remain; not even DNA survives. After the solution is neutralized with a common acid like vinegar or citric acid, it can be used as fertilizer. While the "ew" factor is high for some, this method requires 1/10th of the energy of cremation and doesn't produce any pollution. Bury the ground up bones, and plant a tree above.

Price: Uncertain. Claims to be cheaper than burial/cremation.
Availability: Very limited, only in Austrailia. On the other hand, why not donate your body to science? You body might just end up here.

Bone remnants from resomation

4. Natural Burial

If resomation doesn't strike you as a good way to go, then consider natural burial. A natural burial is about as close as you can get, legally, to digging a hole and dropping a body in. It appeals to those who want their bodies become part of the Earth by way of nature (i.e. microorganisms). Or, it could be for people who get the heebie-jeebies from options like resomation. Depending on the law in your state and county, you are able to perform different levels of  natural burial. Some places allow you to wrap the body in a shroud (cloth) and bury it while other require a "receptable", i.e. biodegradable coffin. You may or may not require a funeral home or cemetery for burial. In rural areas, it's often allowed to bury a body on your own land, and perhaps plant a tree over the grave. The Islamic Society of North America has a pretty good state-by-state summary of burial laws.  If you're interested in natural burial, take a look at your state and see if it's legal. Scattered across the country are natural burial parks/preserves where bodies are tracked by small stones, trees, or GPS coordinates so that families can visit their loved ones. It's never too early to plan.

Price: Depends if you dig your own hole. If you're going to a green burial funeral home, ~$2,500.
Availability: Although not in your immediate vicinity, there are various natural burial areas across the country.

A natural burial

5. Promession
A little farther off is promession. You let the body sit in liquid nitrogen (around -196C) until it's very brittle. At this point, ultrasonic vibrations cause the body to shatter. The resulting powder is dried, and the remains can be dealt with similar to the bone remnants from resomation. It has a lower "ew" factor but unfortunately, it's not drop dead ready.

Price: Similar to cremation.

Availability: Not available in the US. It's a Swedish technology, but I'm not sure it's in practice yet.

Liquid nitrogen

More information on green funerals can be found of the Green Burial Council website. They're the USGBC (US Green Building Council) of funerals.


My family's response
I visited my parents for the weekend, and before writing this post, I ran the concept of resomation by them. My family is Hindu, so cremation is traditional. First, I surveyed my mom and cousin-in-law, Vinti, as we were preparing dinner. "What? That's crazy! I would never do that." At least, that's what I thought they would say. Instead, calmly, both of them responded similarly. "I would consider that. It doesn't matter how it's done, as long as my remains are returned to nature". In Hinduism, people are cremated so that their ashes can be spread and their bodies returned to Earth. Cremation, to Vinti and my mom, is just a means of achieving a natural ending. I also figured that since my mom is a doctor and Vinti is a dentist, they were both immune to the "ew" factor.

So what happened when my doctor father and doctor cousin, Gaurav, were approached with the same concept? Disaster ensued. My father preached that cremation was the traditional way to go and that it is the only way he would do it. My cousin agreed. After a little more prodding, I got my cousin to say that he would consider it if he learned more about it and the practice was more common. After hearing the women's argument, my father finally admitted that it was really the "ew" factor that bothered him, not tradition.

Talk to your friends and family. If you're ready to breach this morbid and uncomfortable topic, it can make for fun and interesting conversation.