Go green (burial, that is)

A green burial is one in which they wrap you in a cloth or stick you in a cardboard box and bury you in the ground. The tricky part is finding a cemetery that will have you. Unfortunately, burial in your back yard isn’t allowed.  

Neither traditional burials nor cremation are earth-friendly body disposal options. Here's why: 

Traditional burials. Here’s what goes into the ground each year in the U.S.:

• 4.3 million gallons of embalming fluids
• 1.6 million tons of reinforced concrete
• 17,000 tons of copper and bronze
• 64,000 tons of steel.

Cremation. Here's the energy required and pollutants emitted from burning one body:

• Uses the same amount of energy required for a 500-mile car trip; roughly the same amount of energy as a single person uses in an entire month.
• Releases 400 Kgs of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere  plus a host of other pollutants and carcinogens, the worst of which is mercury from dental fillings.

Maybe by the time you die more green burial sites will open up. One can only hope.

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.