Unethical funerals

[saint-spoon]

Not a nice subject but I have just read an article about what we bury with our nearest and dearest. Apparently in the USA an average of 30 million square feet of coffin board is buried every year; much of this is tropical hardwood. Enough embalming fluid to fill an Olympic swimming pool goes under the ground and surprisingly 90,000 tonnes of steel (enough to build the golden gate bridge apparently); I can only assume that this is mainly in handles and hinges etc. That’s a lot of landfill and a hefty footprint.

[Mo]

But at least you only do it once.

[spudley]

we are going to be cremated in environmentally freindly coffins (although the idea of cremation is not that great) then our ashes are going to be planted under a young tree. Not that we have any plans to go anywhere soon

[bluebell]

I would like a wicker coffin, would like a woodland funeral, realistically though this isn't an option cos I don't want to go in the damp ground.

Saint-Spoon, do you think some of that steel could be pins, rods and pace-makers, etc.

[seahorse]

I want to be buried in a basket coffin with very little expense!!

[wendy]

Once I am gone.I don 't really care what they do with me. Might be better to mince me up and give me to the dogs. How about that for recycling.
Wendy

[seahorse]

Yeeeuk

[saint-spoon]

Once I am gone.I don 't really care what they do with me. Might be better to mince me up and give me to the dogs. How about that for recycling.
Wendy

I watched a documentary (I think it was a David Attenborough one) about some folk in Tibet (or around that area) who disposed of their dead by chopping them into bits and chucking them off a sacred cliff to feed the vultures. Highly pragmatic and about as environmentally harmonious as you can get IMO.


Not sure about pins and pacemakers Bluebell, I only read the article so I’m not an expert. I did think that some of it might be folk who might want to protect their earthly remains from the worms and had armour plated coffins made for that purpose.

[Teasal]

Part of our local cemetary is given over to green buriels, and I notice they do not have a headstone, but a tree instead, which is nice.

I have already said I would like a very simple buriel - in the field. I know quite a few people who have been buried at home, very simply, and a lot cheaper than being transported here, there and everywhere. My OH said he would bury me on the muck heap!!

[ged]

Hi folks!
I am donating self to medical science when the time comes,an amount of cash has been set aside for a party for family.I feel conventional funerals are a complete rip off financially IMHO.If I live long enough and the old war wound does'nt finish me off sooner,perhaps Wendy has the right idea after all.
atb
ged

[Richard]

Agree, our bodies are just clothing around our souls.

My children are under explicit instructions to cheapskate as much as possible for my goodbye.
It's how people know me and will hopefully raise a smile as well.

[bookbinder]

As part of my work I conduct many funeral services and have to say that people are very reluctant to break tradition.....We do have a couple oflocal undertakers who use the reusable flat pack coffin covers...so that just a cardboard box (like a big shoe box) is cremated.

As yet I haven't done any wicker coffin burials or bamboo...even though they are available I think it is the customer who has to enquire, rather than the funeral director who has to offer......I would also like to conduct funerals in places other than churches and crematoriums, but that is another story!!!

[p.penn]

Agree, our bodies are just clothing around our souls.

That made me cry. :cry:

[Meanqueen]

I like the idea of lying in the corner of a field under a hedge, forever, but I am also tempted to donate my body to medical science, like Ged. The reason? I saw my mum after she died, formal identification, sudden death. She was in the hospital and the policeman asked me if it was M. E. H. R. (her name), I said yes. But she wasn't there, she had already gone, what I saw was just the shell, the outer covering she used while she was here.

We had a normal funeral because that was expected 26 years ago.

Ilona

[Evie]

I worked in the infirmary wing of a convent and saw many deaths.
but the sisters taught me to celebrate their lives not mourn.
Richard is right we just borrow these bodies.
Saw an article on making your loved ones into jewellery, quite like that idea.