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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 19606
[Environmental]
Date Posted:
4/18/2008
9:18:07 am EDT
Wvox Stats
Views: 5,540
RSS: 17,906
Comments: 8
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Eco-Friendly Funerals
Author: Gena Kittner Source: Wisconsin State Journal
Title: ECO-FRIENDLY FUNERALS
When people ask Dave Drapac about his plans for a cemetery where people can be buried without chemicals or even a coffin, their responses tend more toward "cool " than "yuck. "
People have said "I love the idea that I can be composted, " said Drapac, president of the Trust for Natural Legacies, which works to preserve and restore natural areas throughout the Midwest. The group is one of two here looking to establish a "green " graveyard.
It 's an idea that 's catching on. Circle Cemetery, an arm of Circle Sanctuary near Barneveld, is seeking to expand its existing one-acre cremains-only cemetery to 20 acres to include natural burials.
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Community Thoughts: There are 8 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| Not Impressed. | Apr 21st. at 5:03:36 pm EDT
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Eric Wolfborn (Jenkintown, Pennsylvania) - Email Me
I'll be going in the ground just like everyone else. I have no interest in being ground up after I die so I can feel better about myself a little bit before I do.
Now, if we were utilizing corpses to power cities and supplement dwindling energy supplies, then I might be interested.
Also, if you're composted, how can you take part in the zombie apocalypse? I don't want to miss that!
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| Why Not.... | Apr 20th. at 3:44:58 am EDT
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Katmandu (elba, Alabama) - Email Me
let us make a cultural turnaround and start consuming our dead family members? If this offends any readers, I apologize, but I see it as the only sensible solution if what we say here is true. If we are now toxic to the ground when we die and if cremation helps excacerbate global warming, let us either be eatten by animals or people. If it was not for a wish to be buried beside my Mama, I'd tell my family to feed my chunky corpse to the wild cats in the woods here. I've already told them to just dig a hole and roll me into it with minmal legally-required grave liners. And to mark my spot, plant some native Vervain because that's my fave flower.
BTW, the spot where my Mama is buried is a family plot out in the middle of some nowhere.
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| Pass The Crackers.... | Apr 19th. at 11:48:15 am EDT
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bigcat (peoria, Illinois) - Email Me
Every form of disposal is a mess in some way, even cremation, the only thing I can say about cremation is that what is placed on the ground is sterile and can be absorbed back into the ground-the bad thing is that it may contribute to global warming.
The Pharisees in ancient times had something called the Towers of Silence, where corpses were placed to be the food of vultures and other predators. not an option today. Many others preferred cremation. A much cleaner solution, unless you breathed it in or ran out of wood. Many christians still prefer burial with preservation, an idea they took from the Egyptians. And still, a costly way to deal with the dead.
Unfortunately, dying is easy, getting buried is expensive, unless one can find an out of the way place where one can decompose in peace without charge, not too easy to do these days. Cremation is the best and least costly- but it still costs.
Like nuclear waste, we are becoming our own form of pollution when we die unless we can do something to lessen the cost while finding an easier solution to rejoining the natural processes of nature.
I find I agree with the Soylent Green solution. I wouldn't mind going out dressed up in sesame flavor crackers. But-then there's the waste from that.
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| Commentary | Apr 19th. at 2:23:32 am EDT
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NOVA (New Brunswick, New Jersey) - Email Me
Civilization has been doing this for millenia; only the problem today is we must know 'pay' to die. :-/ Pay for life insurance so you can afford to die, pay to be removed from the place you died, pay for your plot, casket, ceremony, burial AND the contract with the cemetery for continuous maintenance that noone is ever sure will actually continue... OR Pay to be cremated and pay for where you are legally allowed to dispense our ashes!! Sheeeezzzz
Try to research the laws per state... I've been and believe me, information has been "buried" and it's a lot of work to find.
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| A Nice Idea, But... | Apr 19th. at 1:13:38 am EDT
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Elderhia (Far North Dallas, Texas) - Email Me
It's a beautiful, organic idea, yes - going back into the earth, remaining part of the great circle of life...
...if you're in a Disney movie. Which also means that wild animals help you clean your house and people around you periodically break into song and/or choreographed dance numbers in lieu of speaking. If that doesn't describe your life, then please consider the following:
~ Decomposing human remains constitute a biohazard - in other words, rotting corpses are bad for you, they can make you sick. If the decomposing remains leach into your water supply, they can make everyone who uses the water sick. Think about the fluids and other substances that are present inside of you right now. They're all-natural, yes, but do you really want to drink them?
~ Population density is such that there simply isn't enough room to dump everybody who dies into a hole in the ground and wait for them to become fertilizer (for that matter, there isn't room to dump them all into a casket in a hole in the ground either - but that's a different rant) . This isn't like watching the dead squirrel down the road decompose; humans take longer, and they're messier about it.
~ In a few places the article sounds disturbingly like it's talking about mass burials, group burials, or possibly pit burials (I really don't want to use the word *composting* here, although it sounds like that too) . No markers, no way to locate individual graves, no individual graves period? No respect for our dead either, apparently. Mass graves may be necessary in some situations, but those situations are usually terrible ones: war, plague, mass murder, etcetera. Those are situations where respect is either not possible or was never present to begin with. If re-entering the food chain is that much more important than human sentiment and respect, why not just turn some of them into Soylent Green while we're at it? That's another eco-friendly solution, not to mention a much more direct route back into the food chain than waiting for fertilizer to happen would be.
Okay, now that I've offended and/or disgusted a lot of people...seriously, I understand wanting to make things simpler and/or cheaper. I understand wanting to repair the break in the great circle of life caused by modern burial practices. I understand that many people feel a burning, driving need to be part of the solution instead of the problem, even in death.
I also understand that this beautiful idea is not practical or possible or even safe for everyone, everywhere...so maybe we shouldn't try to convince people that it's their duty to the earth or to their religious beliefs or to the eco-movement to pursue it.
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| How To Dispose Of A Body | Apr 18th. at 4:21:28 pm EDT
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Faloku (Arcata, California) - Email Me
Step one: Dig a hole. About six feet deep is good. Don't complain, it's wonderful exercise.
Step two: Insert corpse.
Step three: Fill in the hole.
Why we had to make it more complicated than that is beyond me.
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