Going naturally into the hereafter-It's the ultimate recycling.

[babylonsister]

Going naturally into the hereafter

Some cemeteries are requiring eco-friendly burials, including such things as biodegradable caskets.
By David Colker, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 28, 2007
It's the ultimate recycling.

With environmental matters getting ever more popular in life, it was only a matter of time before they spread to death too.

"No embalming, no vault and you have to use a biodegradable casket if you use one at all," said Kimberly Campbell, vice president of Memorial Ecosystems Inc., which operates the Ramsey Creek cemetery in rural South Carolina.

But she hastens to say the company is not absolutist in its back-to-the-land philosophy.

"If someone makes their own casket with a few nails, we're not going to make a fuss about it," Campbell said. "And we don't ask if grandma had a knee replacement."

The cemetery, which she and her physician husband opened in 1998, kicked off the contemporary green burial movement in the U.S. They do allow grave markers, which aren't permitted in natural burial sections of Forever Fernwood in Mill Valley, Calif.

At that cemetery near San Francisco, locating the grave of a departed loved one is like an electronic scavenger hunt.

"We issue the family a Google map with the GPS coordinates," said Jay Boileau, executive vice president of Forever Enterprises, owner of the 32-acre facility.

more...

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-greendeath28oct28,1,4647439.story?ctrack=7&cset=true

[underpants]

1. I've wanted this for a long time

not the dying part (I plan to live forever-so long so good) but to be buried in a pinebox and let me just give back into the earth. Seriously I have thought this was how everyone should do it for a long time.

[Deja Q]

2. Time to whip out my metal detector, shovel, and hunt for gold!

:9


Oh, the preceding message was brought to you by McGarbage fast slop and is :sarcasm:

[leftchick]

3. this is pretty cool

I read an article about this a couple of months ago and decided this is for me. :)

[InvisibleTouch]

4. Regardless of where my "soul" goes...

...if indeed it goes anywyere, I've always wanted my physical elements to return to the Earth to be re-used and nurture new life. Makes perfect sense to me.

[SmokingJacket]

5. I hope this really takes off.

It just makes sense.

[MorningGlow]

6. It shouldn't be necessary to dress up and preserve an empty shell

I never did understand the whole "saving the body" process. All religions teach that the true person is the soul, not the physical body, and yet so many religions go to town puffing up the shell with chemicals, dressing it up, putting makeup on it (my favorite part :puke:), and putting it in not one, but two boxes to keep the decomposition from seeping out, all so family and friends can gaze at the gussied-up body at the wake and murmur "They (the undertakers) did a nice job, didn't they?"

Again, I say: :puke:

When my uncle died, my aunt delivered the clothes he was to be buried in. A little while later the funeral director called her back to tell her she forgot to bring a pair of underwear.

Underwear.

For a dead body.

:wtf:

This change can't come soon enough.

[MuseRider]

7. I told my husband to

roll my dead body off the deck into our big pond out front. Why would anyone need to know? Either that or he could get out my front loader and re dig one of the horse graves and throw me in there with my boots on.

I have never understood burial rites.

[warren pease]

8. And not a decade too soon...

I hate the idea of burial and I'm not nuts about being incinerated. The fact that I'd be dead is beside the point. I'd much prefer to be thrown into some low branches or put on low scaffold of some sort and set out for the bugs and crows. Downwind from humans, of course. Why even bother digging a hole?

wp

[Warpy]

9. Wrapped in a sheet and stuffed into a deep hole

would be fine by me, although I agree with Frida Kahlo: if there is a resurrection of the body, I don't want this one. Cremation is my first choice.

A pauper's burial is a green burial, and I might qualify by the time the GOP gets done fucking up the economy. Having lots of company in the ditch is OK, too. Still, I'd rather reduce this pain wracked, poorly working hunk of ugly flesh to ashes and smoke and remain ethereal for eternity, if there is one.

[tuckessee]

10. Personally, I like the Egyptian way.

If the ancient Egyptians & other lost cultures had been avid recyclers we would know next to nothing about them.

[datasuspect]

11. donating your cadaver can also help

whole body organ donation.

[mvccd1000]

12. Something upon which we can agree. :) nt

[riverdeep]

13. I was joking the other day,

by the time I have to retire or can no longer work, with the way things are going, my 'retirement plan' is going to be a .45 and large bottle of alcohol. Go out into the deep woods and let the coyotes have a windfall. Pretty environmentally friendly, too, I suppose.

Sure hope it stays a joke.

[NMMNG]

14. I just read about this in Vegatarian Times

I like the idea.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

15. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust".

For me, and my wife, it's going to be ashes.

[watercolors]

16. We have made that choice also.

No fuss, no funeral, our children know our wishes. We told them to just get together and remember good times we had together. We do not want a financial burden on them, we have already taken care of all.

[babylonsister]

17. Yep, us, too. nt

[Ellen Forradalom]

18. Me too

Scattered over Lake Michigan.