i'm planning on cremation and then recycling the ashes, and doing something great for the environment. check out
http://www.eternalreefs.com

I want to become one with my compost when I go but that could get pretty messy! I might plan my death so I perish in the wilderness so I'm recycled very quickly by birds, coyotes and the insects.

These approaches are probably not for most people. It would be helpful if "natural burials" were legalized so bodies could decompose faster and without adding toxins to the environment.

Cremation is the best, cleanest and cheapest but should be done only after all usable organs have been donated. Once you're dead, you're dead. It's the memories that stay alive it our hearts. Kwitsmowkin everyone and you'll live longer.

Burial is the way to go but it has to be a green burial - no embalming etc. I don't know if this is legal in any state but it certainly needs to be. My family know that is my first choice and if that is not possible it is going to be burial at sea!

This is about personal choice and religeos belief. “Green”, “Save the Planet”, etc. do not come into it. This is down to personal belief. For me, I am happy to go straight into a wormery, but are my survivors?

Basic physics, eveyone - cremation releases way more CO2 because you're a carbon-based life form. Same for trees in the Amazon or anywhere else. If you have spent a great deal of time flying, you'll have noticed the atmosphere is dirtier everywhere over the last 30 years. Ask any pilot. Used to be clean way out in the middle of the Pacific. No longer.

I like the native and east indian methods, as they are more natural. This was also done in our early pioneer days. I think the concrete liners are legal non-necessity. Treasuring one who has preceded you should be a matter of the heart.

Definitely donate your organs first and then cremation with your ashes scattered in one of your favorite outdoor places.

Since I am now the ripe "old" age of 67 this has become a much discussed issue lately with my children. I read in a People magazine about the "green burial" down in a place in North Carolina. A handmade pine box, body wrap in linen and lifted down into the earth. The setting is in a piece of land the owners bought with trees, wildflowers and in a setting that is beautiful. For me I would like that or cremation as I do not live in North Carolina but in Indiana.

I saw lay us on wood and send us off to sea and shoot flamed arrows to light us up. Like in the movie "King Arthur"

I think that a "natural" burial in the ground would be the greenest, minus plastic or cement liners, body bags and without using any of the embalming chemicals. However one would have to be careful about burial near water sources. I don't know how much energy is used and pollution created during cremation. Interested in the experts results.

I have requested cremation for myself, but burial would probably be greener, if there was no big coffin. How about a shroud or light covering of some kind?

This is about personal choice and religeos belief. "Green", "Save the Planet", etc. do not come into it. This is down to personal belief. For me, I am happy to go straight into a wormery, but are my survivors?

Cremation is best. No coffin - just scatter the ashes.

There should be more flexibility in allowing ashes to be scattered almost any place which is acceptable to the familly.

Cremation done properly so smoke does not escape to the atmosphere has to be greener than taking up land space with huge non-biodegradable outlandishly expensive boxes containing the dead. I've recently had my deceased husband cremated; more from economic consideration than anything else, although it was his and my wish. Actually his wish was to be put in the compost heap! He loved his compost heap and had weekly zen experiences turning his compost and savoring the use of it for the garden. In 4 years our soil improved from 1/16" topsoil to 4 inchs topsoil with the addition of compost and our goat manure. His ashes got lost, so I didn't get to put a sprinkle of them in the compost. I put some symbolic dust in there to make up for it.

I think burial in biodegradable containers would be greener than cremation, but that time has not yet come.

My mother, who was a native of France, also had wished to be cremated. She thought open casket funerals were barbaric. I have to agree.

I recently heard that there are a few "green" cemetaries in the US. They use pine coffins and no chemicals. However, I think that organ donation and cremation are the way to go out green.

It's not the coffin (especially if it's wood) so much as the formaldehyde (and other chemicals?) used in embalming that puts toxins into the ground. Personally, I'd like my corpse, once my eyes and any other reusable parts have been removed for the use of others, to be dumped naked into a whole in the ground for decomposition, as Andy Orsini suggests. But since my family probably won't go for this, and since there are probably laws against it (public nudity??), I suggest cremation in one of the new "clean-burning" ovens used in some cities and states to burn refuse, where the smoke is trapped and cleaned rather than being released into the atmosphere.

I have to say that burial is greener. Burning bodies makes more CO2, ofcourse. While in burial, the body can become food for plants. It will become into organic food. It's biology class basics P:

Burial - As the animals do it,only, of course, we dig a hole instead of leaving the body on the ground, no coffin etc.... Maybe a headstone, made from recycled concrete. How macabre!

The Natural Death Centre in the UK and the Natural Death Centre of Australia (modelled on the UK organization) websites offer information, at:
www.naturaldeath.org.uk/ and
www.naturaldeathcentre.org.au/ .

An excellent page of links is at: www.naturaldeath.org.uk/usa_and_canada.html .
[CORRECTED URL]

I prefer cremation due to lack of "real estate" and cost of funeral/burial. I think it should be done with clean fuels though. As for burial, I think that to get rid of the liners, cemetaries would have to be located way away from general population b/c as our bodies decompose, there are toxins that could get into the ground water and in turn reach the living. I think I read that somewhere, but I could be misinformed.

How about burial at sea? It gives the sealife edibles, does not pollute the air and doesn't take up prime real estate in an ever-shrinking world. (Without the Viking portion with the flaming boat.) Just a thought.

I am an organ donor. So, of course I don't feel that either burial or cremation are green. However, for those who don't believe in recycling body parts, I think burial in a sealed and deep tomb is the greenest option. Preferably we could start puting burials in abandoned mine shafts or oil wells. We need to start resinking some of this we have been freeing from earth's storage facility. That's why burying for decomposition (i.e. a natural) is not much better than burning, both processes liberate more carbon into the atmosphere.

Bury me!
Just recycle me & plant a tree on top of me!

xx

Burial is greener if we are not embalmed
which is required by law in some states.Then use a completely biodegradable coffin and no cement liner which is also required by law in some states.Other than that cremation done in a natural fashion,like the american indians used to do.

I visited a site where they are proposing freeze-drying people. What they do is 1) freeze you solid with liquid nitrogen, 2) blast your body with sonic waves such that it disintegrates into dust, 3) this dust is sifted for any metallic object that were in your body (fillings, hip replacement, etc), 4) remaining dust is completely dried and 5) remains are placed in a corn-starch burial box. I personally think it is a unique approach. I don't know if it is greener or not vis-a-vis cremation/burial (I suspect liquid nitrogen is carbon expensive to create). I personally would like to have my family dig a nice hole for me, place the corn-starch coffin, then plant a nice fruit tree over me (or walnut, or oak, just something that produces...) O frankly wouldn't care if they just threw my body out someplace where wild animals, worms and beetles could have their way. But... end of life services, including body disposal, are for the living. Generally speaking...

In Minnesota USA when a body is embalmed the liquid remains go into the water system as the body is prepared. Work is being done to have body fluids go into a tank versus the sewer systems especially will help with infectious diseases. I feel cremation takes up less land space versus caskets and vaults.

I learned in my death and dying class how turtles were introduced to the Ganges River in India to help with the remains placed into the river. I deeply respect the faith of those in India.

Green burial is big in England (probably beyond). The burials I know of there are in wicker baskets in wooded areas. Only a few cemetaries in the U.S. offer green burial, but the movement is bound to grow.

Green Burial Council in the US
http://www.greenburialcouncil.org/
"The Green Burial Council is an independent, nonprofit organization founded to encourage ethical and environmentally sustainable deathcare practices, and to use the burial process as a means of facilitating the acquisition, restoration and stewardship of natural areas."

Burial in a pine box (a container is required) is best if there is no automotive funeral procession.
Cremation pollutes the atmosphere and uses whatever energy source fires the blaze,
.

When exloring the 'green-ness' of this issue, we need only think of what Al Czervik--owner of Czervik Construction--once said: "Golf courses and cemeteries are the biggest waste of prime real estate." On both counts, he's right. So, aside from being a complete waste of the Earth's space (or, what some like to call "real estate"), burial is borderline moronic. If we can ensure that it is in fact the greenest way to turn our dearly departed into ash, cremation is the only way to go. And of course the truly intelligent pre-cremation thing to do is donate any usable organs.

Peace and Be well.

(p.s., congrats Al!)

Lara said it best - organ donate and then light a match to the remains?

Be an organ donor and light a match to the remains.

I agree with replies #3 & #4,

We need to "DE-consumerize" the process of getting closure with our lost loved ones, and refine the business practice of "undertaking" in culturally and ecologically responsible ways.

My vote is definitely for cremation! One can still donate organs or body for science. It's my understanding that bodies used for science research are cremated and returned to family and loved ones if requested. My feelings have always been that as long as a person is remembered, they're not truly gone. The Spirit leaves the body at death, therefore the 'real person' is no longer in the vessel called a body anyway. Wouldn't want anyone to feel I'm trying to force my feelings on them, only wanted to state my opinion. Thank you.

why don't we opt for a burial ground on the moon to save space on earth?

I would say burial, however, If we were to go back to pine boxes, and burial the way it was done long ago, we would also have to remember that we would not be able to use formaldehyde or other forms of preservation used prior to burial.....
Preserving our bodies so our loved ones can say goodbye can be more harmful to the environment than any coffin.

I heard there is a movement in Europe for funerals with compostable caskets and burial without chemical preservatives. A person and their casket would simply decompose into the soil. Then the family could plant a tree on top of it and perhaps put a memorial plaque on the tree instead of on a tombstone. I would like to have a nice fruit tree as my memorial.Graveyards could become memorial orchards in this way.

cremation is the way to go, if only for all the land it frees up that would otherwise be used for cemetaries. there are over 6 billion of us, after all.

There are biodegradable coffins.

It depends on the method of burial~ and the type of cremation. I think that the government really screwed things up by requiring the vaults... and all the pretty little caskets... that preserve the body. Get real, God did not intend for our bodies to be preserved after death. He intended on us being a part of the circle of life.

Donate body parts to science~better yet, donate the entire body... for scientist to study time of death it feeds insects, bugs etc. or feed the rest to the fish in the ocean, or burry in a hole for the worms... with no box, or cremate the small amount of remains. We are wasting our land, and our materials on coffins, vaults, etc.

I myself am an organ donar, and my family knows I would like for science to have the rest. Or for the remainder to be cremated. I'll be dead, who knows what they will do~ it will not matter to me then.

"ashes to ashes & dust to dust"~

If we can only choose between those two, then "burial." Humans make good worm food, and worms make good soil.

I vote for cremation using a container which dissolves and get rid of the vault liners. We're running out of space, and cremation is space efficient.

A natural burial would make the most sence. no enbalming, no super delux coffin. Just laid naturally in the ground, maby in a natural wood coffin or something. let nature take it's course.

I would say burial without the coffin. In a few million years we would have a little bit of oil again.

Burial in cloth directly in the ground should have the least impact as long as the land can be used again for the same purpose after decomposition is complete. Pollutants such as mercury found in some filling would have to be removed before burial. Donating the organs and body to science is a wonderful thing to do but after that has occurred the remains still need to be recycled.

A recent burial practice is to place bodies in a bamboo or pine box and bury randomly. The body and the wood box decay and feed the soil. No tombstones or grave markers are used, only large natural stones to mark the location of the grave.

Cremation, dust to dust. We do not have enough ground space to bury all these bodies and how long does it take for a body to decompose.

Recycle. Donate organs and tissue. Then give body to research or medical school.

As nature intended, our dead but not useless bodies should be returned to the earth like any other animal. Not embalmed or in any box. The trick is to do it in a way and place that will not poison the groundwater. Any suggestions?

Did you know that not every state in the U.S. allows green burials? I'm supporting a land trust in the area of my home state that is working to provide natural burial options in my state, so that I can have the kind of burial I want: chemical free and back to the Earth.

Get involved!