Green burials are gaining traction in the Washington area (Soylent Green?)

washngtonpost.com ^ | June 6, 2011 | Rachel Saslow

[PROCON]

Live eco-conscious, die eco-conscious. People who drive hybrid cars, recycle, compost and eat vegetarian are showing increased interest in leaving this world in an equally Earth-friendly way: a green burial.

“Baby boomers who define themselves as environmentalists don’t want to go out with a final act of pollution,” says Joe Sehee, executive director of the Green Burial Council, headquartered in Santa Fe, N.M. “A lot of people find solace in returning to the earth naturally."

[PGR88]

Washington DC is a world unto itself. The lefty group-think seems to come in the tap water there.

[The Great RJ]

Our current practice of embalming comes from the Civil War when the new at the time technology of embalming allowed soldiers remains to be transported home from the battlefield to family cemeteries. Adding to the popularity of embalming was that Abraham Lincoln's body was embalmed and transported back to Springfield, IL while being viewed by an estimated million people in various cities along the way....something that would not have been possible without embalming.

However consider donating your body to a local medical school. My brother-in-law died of cancer and at his wish had his body donated to the University of Minnesota Medical School. His cremated remains were as an option returned to the family about a year later and buried in the family plot. Medical schools may also give an option of mass burial of the cremated remains of all donors not claimed by families.

[Jack Hydrazine]

The way to go won’t be cremation because that will unleash to much of that new pollutant called CO2. Instead they will just recycle your remains.

[ZX12R]

Personally, I never quite understood the notion of embalming remains, putting them in a metal coffin and burying them in a cement vault. Dust to dust to me means just that.

Same here, and it has nothing to do with pollution. It just seems more appropriate to embrace, rather than prevent, the natural process.

[He Rides A White Horse]

Crabs gotta eat as well, and it is environmentally friendly too!

We were acting in an environmentally friendly way when we tossed Bin Laden overboard.

[PROCON]

Thanks for the interesting history of our modern burial practices!

I personally don't want to be "planted" in the ground; your suggestion of donating my body to a medical school will be considered, or cremation.

[Darksheare]

*singing, terribly*

“The circle of liiiiife!”

[packrat35]

I want to be stuffed in a large tractor tire and set on fire with a pile of radials for good measure.

[He Rides A White Horse]

heh heh...’Go Green with Saleem’

[HeartlandOfAmerica]

If I had the money, I’d have my head cryogenically frozen and cremate the rest. I wanna see the future in 300 years ;)

[Darksheare]

*chuckle*
We’re horrible, but it’s funny!

[Daffynition]

Bindun...

Angler's dying wish granted as his ashes are turned into 30lbs of fishbait

[He Rides A White Horse]

My whole family has a dark humor. I don’t know where it comes from, but oh well(g)

[Daffynition]

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I think the best way to dispose of a cadaver is to do what natural history museums do with animal cadavers, when they just want clean bones to display. When the cadaver is still moist, they use maggots, then when it is somewhat dried, cadaver beetles.

They are very thorough, even cleaning out the bone marrow. Then, any artificial parts can be separated out, and the bones can either be sanitized in a common bleach solution, for display in a ossuary, or they can be incinerated into ash, or just ground into a powder.

The extra insects can be compressed into high protein food for zoo animals. The entire process takes just two or three weeks, is non-polluting, and if someone is queasy about insects, if they were buried they would be consumed by insects anyway, and somewhat nastier ones.

[maine-iac7]

That's how Jews bury their dead-- no embalming, a wooden coffin, a hole in the ground

In England, 'caskets' are, by law, simple wooden one. That's for everyone 0 Princess Dianna was buried in a simple wooden box - draped with a cover with her colors/Coat of ARms and sprays of roses from her boys

[boop]

Some med school skeletons came from India, where they used some kind of ant that did the “cleaning” of the bones. There was a kind of controversy years back, that the skeletons of kids were processed this way and schools thought it was unethical to use them.

[RC51]

The truth is these “green burials” are cheap, cheap, cheap. Liberal Baby Boomers didn’t have kids who gave a damn about them anyway. They were more likely to abort what could have been a caring family.

Heck, even **conservative** Baby Boomers all too often abandoned their grandchildren. Think your step-kid’s going to give a darn about the funeral of some selfish jerk who spent his last dime on a fancy retirement home on a golf-course in Florida or Arizona? Not likely.

Baby Boomers should just pay that illegal alien who’s re-painting their house right now to dig a hole in the backyard while they’re at it.

If your a member of the parasite generation; stealing from future generations to pay for you, and this posts pisses you off. Don’t hit reply - instead pick up the phone and call your grand-kids, learn the name of their school teacher, coach or best friend. Don’t send me a private message, send a private message to your kids apologizing for the last selfish thing you did which hurt them or their family.

[Darksheare]

I can count a couple posters who are on our wavelength.
Check out Daffy’s post #34.

LOVE IT.
My family has an odd sense of humor, so I grew up with all kinds of hilarity going on.

[cbvanb]

Actually, as a scuba diver, I kind of liked that idea. I have dived several places where plaques had been placed to commemorate divers who happened to like that particular spot. Maybe someone will be reading my name at depth someday.