Editor’s Note: This article is a reprint. It was initially revealed April 28, 2018.
Most of you studying this text proper now in all probability do your greatest to reside a inexperienced and eco-friendly life-style. You probably purchase native, natural and regenerative meals when doable and use chemical-free cosmetics, private care merchandise and family cleaners. You might even recycle and drive an electrical car. These actions are commendable and bode properly for our planet’s future.
But what about your burial? Conventional burials (together with cremation) are characterised by ground- and water-polluting chemical compounds, man-made greenhouse gasoline emissions and energy-intensive practices together with the huge deforestation to reap wooden for making caskets.
The featured movie, “Eco-Death Takeover: Changing the Funeral Industry,” reveals simply how taxing the “funeral industrial complex” is on our surroundings and why we must always think about eco-friendlier options equivalent to inexperienced or pure burials.
In Western tradition, the idea of demise is reasonably taboo. Though an inevitable destiny for all of us, demise itself is never mentioned, not to mention the practices and cultural traditions that comply with the passing of a cherished one. This may very well be why you’ve by no means heard of or thought concerning the environmentally damaging processes that happen with typical burials in America.
The movie was made by The Order of the Good Death, a corporation based by mortician and funeral home-owner Caitlin Doughty. Doughty, an advocate for inexperienced burials, is the creator of two books, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory”1 and “From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death.”2
Embalming Our Dead With Formaldehyde
The movie begins out speaking about what occurs to our corpse after we die — a squeamish-like subject unfit for these with a weak abdomen, however an vital (and related) topic nonetheless. Naturally, our our bodies decay after we die. It’s inevitable. Yet, as a consequence of our cultural traditions, the funeral trade goes to nice lengths to delay this pure course of, pumping the circulatory system and physique cavity with a carcinogenic cocktail of preservative chemical compounds known as embalming fluid.
The primary ingredient in embalming fluid is formaldehyde,3 a hazardous substance linked to most cancers and irritation of the eyes, nostril and throat.
Formaldehyde was found in 1867 by chemist August Wilhelm von Hofmann.4 The chemical changed using arsenic within the twentieth century and have become the first ingredient for embalming corpses. Though extremely poisonous to people, formaldehyde is the most well-liked chemical preservative amongst embalmers as a consequence of its effectiveness.
Debbie Dodge, president of the Dodge Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which markets embalming fluid to funeral properties, informed The New York Times,5 “Formaldehyde is the perfect product for fixation and short-term preservation. Formaldehyde will firm up the body tissue more than any of the nonformaldehyde products out there.”
Formaldehyde publicity within the office is commonest amongst embalmers, dentists, pathologists, veterinarians and people working within the clothes trade or furnishings factories.
For embalmers, one of many primary routes of publicity is inhalation, which means efficient air flow is vital to defending the well being of embalmers. Formaldehyde ranges throughout embalming can attain as much as 9 elements per million (ppm); 0.75 ppm is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) most permissible degree.6
Delaying the Inevitable
In the U.S., 800,000 gallons of formaldehyde is dumped into the soil every year. How did we get to a spot of dumping such huge quantities of chemical compounds into the Earth to protect a physique that’s nonetheless going to decompose? The means of embalming was first developed within the late 1800s as a way to protect the physique for scientific examine. It later grew to become in style within the funeral trade as demand elevated to show the physique of the deceased.
The apply grew extra in style throughout the Civil War as embalming was used to protect the our bodies of deceased army males — a few of whom traveled nice distances by prepare or horse and buggy — to return dwelling for his or her burials. Attempts to protect the physique don’t cease with embalming.
Humans are positioned in a contemporary casket often made out of wooden, metallic or a mix of each. The casket is then positioned inside a burial vault or grave liner designed to stop the Earth from sinking in across the grave — in different phrases, a casket in your casket.
This course of just isn’t solely pricey (averaging $9,000 to $11,000 per funeral within the U.S.), but in addition takes a toll on the atmosphere. Each yr, an estimated 4 million acres of forests are cleared to make nondegradable wood caskets along with 115 million tons of metal and a pair of.3 billion tons of concrete.7
All of that is performed in an effort to delay a course of that’s inevitable — pure decomposition. Interestingly, the U.S. and Canada are the one nations the place embalming is broadly practiced.
Crematories: Raining Formaldehyde
By now chances are you’ll be questioning about cremation. It cuts again on quite a lot of the sources required by a traditional burial, so isn’t it extra eco-friendly? Yes and no, says Doughty, including that direct cremation or cremation performed with out visitation or embalming is more cost effective and has its eco-friendly perks, i.e., no embalming and no casket. But the place there’s a crematory, there’s fireplace, and the place there’s fireplace, there’s smoke, she says, including:
“In the case of a crematory, that smoke can contain a lot of harmful substances including carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrochloric acid, sulphur dioxide, dioxin and carcinogens polychlorinated dibenzodioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans.”
Another well being and environmental concern linked to crematories is the mercury vapor dispersed into the air from a corpse with amalgam dental fillings. The chemical air pollution is even worse with corpses embalmed with formaldehyde. Similar to mercury, vaporized formaldehyde stays suspended within the ambiance till it bonds with water and rains again down on the Earth. Clearly, there have to be higher methods to bury our lifeless.
Measures are being taken to make cremation much less damaging on our surroundings. These embody air pollution filters, which scale back air air pollution however don’t remove it. Some crematories are reusing the large quantity of power required to cremate our bodies to warmth properties, public buildings and even swimming swimming pools. But because the movie notes, it’s nonetheless “putting a Band-Aid on an inherently flawed process.”
Green Alternatives to Conventional Burials
So, what could be performed to make the traditions and processes surrounding demise extra eco-friendly and fewer poisonous? The answer might lie in a course of known as alkaline hydrolysis, additionally known as aquamation, water cremation or flameless cremation. For a long time, alkaline hydrolysis has been utilized in medical colleges and for livestock and pets. It makes use of primarily water to speed up the pure decomposition means of a corpse, dissolving the tissue and lowering it to gentle bone fragments.
This is achieved by putting a corpse, generally wearing a biodegradable shroud, right into a pressurized metal container stuffed with 95% water and 5% potassium. Over a two- to three-hour interval, the alkaline stress and heated options flow into across the corpse, mimicking the chemical decomposition course of the physique undergoes when buried.
The remaining bone fragments are pulverized and given to family members, whereas the liquid broth left behind — a neutralized combination of amino acids, peptides, sugars and salts — can both be repurposed into fertilizer or safely discarded.
Aquamation Versus Flame-Based Cremation
Compared to cremation, aquamation reduces the carbon footprint by greater than 75%, whereas using one-eighth the quantity of power, based on the Funeral Consumers Alliance. With aquamation, mercury vapors are contained and recycled as an alternative of vaporized.8
Also, as a result of corpses aren’t being incinerated at such excessive warmth — upward of 1,800 levels Fahrenheit — aquamation or flameless cremation leads to fewer greenhouse gasoline and carbon dioxide emissions, rendering chemical emissions virtually nonexistent, says Doughty.
But what about all of the water used for aquamation? The course of doesn’t require as a lot as you may suppose. The quantity of water used to cut back the physique to gentle tissue and flush out the alkaline hydrolysis machine is equal to lower than three days’ value of water utilized by the typical American, based on the movie. Is aquamation the way forward for physique disposal? Maybe. But it has to clear the authorized hurdle first.
Aquamation or flameless cremation is presently authorized in solely 14 states, together with California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Wyoming. And, whereas authorized in these states, alkaline hydrolysis is just permitted for the disposal of human stays in 4 states, which means the others enable it for pets solely.9
Alkaline Hydrolysis: The Next Step in Death Technology?
So, what’s the case towards aquamation? To put it plainly, some persons are disgusted or unnerved by the thought of dissolving themselves or their family members’ physique in an alkaline hydrolysis machine and flushing the remnants down the drain. Some might discover it disrespectful to the lifeless. However, as Doughty factors out, water cremation appears far much less violent than burning a corpse in an incinerator.
Philosopher and different funeral advocate Phil Olson agrees, telling The Atlantic, “Burning grandma in fire seems to be violent. In contrast, green cremation is ‘putting grandma in a warm bath.’” Alkaline hydrolysis isn’t excellent. But it appears to be cheaper and fewer damaging to the atmosphere.
Natural Burials: Letting Nature Do Its Thing
Other inexperienced burial options embody pure burials. Natural or inexperienced burials are the best option to put a corpse within the earth and let nature take over with little to no environmental affect, based on the movie. This is achieved by putting a corpse, both wrapped in a biodegradable shroud manufactured from cotton or unbleached bamboo, right into a casket manufactured from biodegradable supplies equivalent to seagrass or willow.
The casket is then positioned in a shallow grave measuring 3 to 4 ft deep. Once buried, nature takes over, permitting micro organism and bugs within the soil to naturally break down the physique and casket over time. Can pure burials result in water and soil air pollution? Not probably, says Doughty.
A examine revealed by the Pan American Journal of Public Health discovered that pathogens don’t survive very lengthy in a lifeless physique or the soil round it as a result of a corpse buried in a shallow grave is uncovered to oxygen extra rapidly, which accelerates the decomposition course of.10
During decomposition, the physique might warmth as much as over 100 levels Fahrenheit, killing most, if not all, pathogens current at demise. Soil and water contamination has been noticed, nevertheless, in typical cemeteries because of the poisonous chemical compounds used within the embalming course of.11 The most vital distinction between a traditional burial and a pure or inexperienced burial is the affect it has on our surroundings.
There are methods to make typical burials greener with strategies equivalent to eco-friendly embalming and Earth-friendly caskets, however it’s all an try to make a damaging course of just a little bit higher, says Doughty. More persons are opening their minds to greener options in relation to demise. For instance, the Bradshaw Celebration of Life Center in Minnesota experiences that when given the selection, 80% of individuals desire a inexperienced cremation.12
If you actually give it some thought, inexperienced burials are the last word option to give again to the Earth, which has supported us our total lives, says Doughty, including: “You eat plants and animals in life, and in death, they get to eat you.” In different phrases, with a inexperienced burial, the circle of life comes full circle at demise.
