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AYESHA IN ALABAMA ASKS:
My town is fighting a proposed crematorium because the air pollution from the facility would not be safe for the surrounding neighborhoods. This makes me wonder, are there environmentally friendly ways to be cremated or buried? Is there such a thing as a green funeral?
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MOM DETECTIVE ANSWERS:
Excellent question! Generally, lots of people have trouble talking about death, including how our bodies will be handled after we die, so I am grateful for your forthrightness. I am also game to talk about death, so let’s jump right in and cover the two most common “disposition” options available. That’s right, disposition is the word used to refer to burial and cremation in funeral industry jargon, I kid you not.
Burial
Who doesn’t associate a funeral with a graveyard, grave site, and gravestone, replete with mourners in black? Here’s the environmental problem with this typical scenario: burial can be chemically intensive, from formaldehyde body embalming to the materials the caskets are made of, some of which contain particleboard with formaldehyde glue in them. Formaldehyde is a known carcinogen.
Burial also requires land—lots and lots of land. Many plots contain boundary walls between them, and these can be made from a wide variety of materials, but most typically from cement. Production of traditional cement is said to account for about 8% of global carbon dioxide emissions.
The fix? If you’re interested in this sort of traditional afterlife care, a newer, eco-friendlier option is “green” or natural burials. These are similar to what you would expect with a textbook burial but use biodegradable casket materials, instead of metal or hardwood lined with some sort of soft puffy bedding. While natural burials do overall use less or zero toxic chemicals than standard ones, they don’t address land use.
Cremation
Did you know that cremation has surpassed casket burial as the most common method of disposition in the United States? I didn’t. Maybe some people think cremation is a “green” option because it doesn’t require land or embalming fluids, but cremating a body actually uses considerable energy. And as you mentioned about the facility planned near where you live, cremation also releases significant air pollution.
According to National Geographic, cremators burn natural gas or propane at high temperatures (1,200°F to 1,800°F) for about two hours per body, which releases high amounts of carbon dioxide, averaging roughly 534 pounds per cremation. It can also release mercury vapor from dental fillings. Gory but true. According to a study on emission characteristics of harmful air pollutants from cremators in Beijing, China, these pollutants could have severe effects on the environment surrounding the crematorium—and on human health.
Thankfully, awareness is growing about the environmental impacts of both burial and cremation. The more people like you ask the question, the better. So let’s get into some of the newer, eco-friendlier alternatives to these two traditional popular methods.
Body composting, a.k.a. soil transformation
This is what it sounds like. Human composting transforms a body into soil that can be used for land or conservation purposes. Families can keep some of the resulting dirt for memorials or to scatter as desired, like cremated ashes. Much of what is available to learn about the body composting process comes from the companies that are actively trying to sell it to people, so I am taking this information with a grain (or more) of salt.
Providers describe the process as follows: bodies are washed, not embalmed, and wrapped in biodegradable materials, then placed in a “custom vessel” (these are sometimes stainless steel) and covered with organic materials (think about what you put on your own compost: wood chips and the like). In a controlled environment with specific heat, oxygen, and moisture, a body decomposes in about a month or a month and a half, then is “cured” for a few weeks. I don’t know what sort of facility this all happens in.
Some companies offering this service claim it uses almost 90% less energy and saves a metric ton of carbon emissions—give or take—compared to burials or cremations. If this interests you, keep in mind that body composting is only legal in over a dozen states. Check in yours. A friend who liked the idea of becoming dirt to be scattered around her favorite tree roots was told she might need to ship her body to a faraway state. This didn’t sit well with her. You stand warned.
Water cremation
When I first heard about water cremation, I thought of burial at sea. Apparently, this is actually allowed in the United States but is strictly regulated by EPA under the Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act (MPRSA). If this floats your boat, so to speak, check out the requirements.
Back to water cremation: it’s formally called alkaline hydrolysis. While it is currently legal in about 30 states, getting one mostly depends on where there is a facility offering the process near where you live. Here’s how it works: a corpse without embalming fluid gets wrapped in a biodegradable material shroud like silk or wool and then placed in a specific chamber with hot water and chemicals—typically lye, which the people selling water cremation say is environmentally gentle. The process only takes hours compared to a month plus for body composting. Apparently, the remaining liquid can be sent to wastewater treatment plants.
As with cremation and body composting, remains are returned to the family for scattering and memorials. Companies offering the process claim it uses up to 90% less energy than fire-based cremation and no carbon dioxide emissions or mercury dental filling vapor. If you’re looking into this, other names for water cremation include bio-cremation and aquamation.
If neither of these is of interest, Ayesha, you can always donate your body to science, though, a caveat: you may still wind up cremated after being useful to researchers. One thing you absolutely cannot do in the United States is what’s called a sky burial, otherwise known as leaving a deceased person’s body outdoors, like on a mountaintop, to decompose or be consumed by scavengers. Fines for doing that vary according to state and municipality. Now you know!
Tell Congress: The Climate Clock Is Ticking. Act Now for Our Kids’ Future.