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I’m a late middle aged guy wondering, why is this so interesting to me?
Sadly, within the past 7 months I’ve had to add to the funeral business twice.
#2 Les
Sorry about your loss.
So I have always made it known I want a cremation, but according to the video that is bad? The video didn’t offer any eco-friendly options here in the states! I still plan on getting cremated though, cemeteries are a waste of space…
I can’t help but wonder why anyone would ever want to be buried in a sealed leak-proof casket. Lying there rotting away in a putrid environment, so sickening that the worms don’t even want you, slowly deteriorating into some formless goo, in a casket guaranteed not to leak for 150 years. Somehow it feels like torture of the soul.
Embalming is a ripoff. It used to be necessary when shipping bodies on a train half way across the country. But now the upsell embalming even for a local event, when just keeping the body in a cooler most of the time is plenty good.
My instructions say give me the cheapest funeral that you can find. Cremation as second choice, cardboard box in eco-friendly graveyard (no marker) as first choice. Let me return to the earth as soon as possible. And I also specify that the difference in the tab when compared to the average funeral MUST be used for a nice two week cruise to Hawaii by my spouse. Much better than giving the money to the funeral industry.
#4 Awake
“cardboard box in eco-friendly graveyard (no marker) as first choice”
I hear ya’, but I don’t think that’s legal in the U.S.
I asked to be placed upon a pile of logs set afire on a wooden ship with a dragons head be and sent off into the horizon in a blaze of glory.. I think the folks down at the Lake Erie marina will bitch though..,
#5 FS –
Eco-friendly burials may not be available in the US today as they are in more civilized countries, but I’m hoping that it will be a looong time before I’m a consumer of that particular item, and that by then American society will be behaving just a little less like spoiled the spoiled rich ignorant superstitious selfish self-centered brats that we are. (like that will happen… Huckabee is actually a viable candidate… there is no hope for America)
#7 Awake
“by then American society will be behaving just a little less like the spoiled rich ignorant …”
The safe bet is probably on Soylent Green…
🙂
Cremation is not quite enough. I want to be vaporized into a greenhouse gas so I can enter the stratoshpere and contribute to global warming.
Google “Elmer McCurdy” for another solution.
Perry
#6 qsabe
“I asked to be placed upon a pile of logs set afire on a wooden ship with a dragons head be and sent off into the horizon in a blaze of glory.. I think the folks down at the Lake Erie marina will bitch though..,”
I suggest a case of Captain Morgan sent down to said marina the day before the ceremony… they’ll get into the spirit of the occasion, pun intended.
Re: Not being able to choose not to be enbalmed. If you tell the funeral director that the deceased was Jewish or Muslim, they will not bother to lie as all people of those faiths are routinely buried without being enbalmed, in a box with a hole in the bottom to let out the juices.
I believe the most ecological / best / cheapest way to go is to donate your entire body –> parts for people who need them and the rest as a cadaver. That way you and your family do not have to spend anything (vs $X000’s).
And, if I can’t go this way, I would prefer to be shark bait. 🙂
The only ecologically friendly way to have your body removed is to borrow money from the mob in Ireland and not pay them back. They’ll come and get you and feed you to the hogs.
(Minor Plot line in Snatch–excellent movie!)
Jeanne is right. Burial at sea is the only ecological choice in this country… or is it illegal too?
My mother recently died and I was going to have her cremated. The funeral home sent me a form I had to sign and notarize saying that cremation is permanent and non-reversible. I called and told them I was alarmed by their document and now I couldn’t decide. I asked them if they could just cut the body in half and burn half of it until I could make a final decision. These assholes hung up on me, go figure.
Anyone for Dehydration…
OK,
I want to be FREEZE dried…
Just add water to resurrect..
http://tinyurl.com/26rcu6
[ECA…tinyurl.com please! – ed.]
#18 – ECA
I would go for that solution as well.
Green burials are starting to become an option in the US. Check out http://www.greenburials.org
I plan to be buried under a pyramid larger that all the great pyramids in Egypt. The pyramid will be built at the location of my apartment, so many hundreds of people will be forced from their homes. 1000s of slaves will build the pyramid – those who dont die during construction will be buried alive with my sarcophagus.
In Oregon if you are buried within 24hours of your death you can be legally buried on your own property without any embalming. If you wait longer than 24hours you must by law be embalmed or cremated.
#21 – I kicked a guy in the sarcophagus once.
#22 Legally enforced pollution; wonderful.
I have to compliment the people down at Good, the quality and sly humor of this video befits their name.
#3 – Sying Flaucer,
How about burial at sea? Or, a Jewish funeral with a plain pine box, no nails allowed, no embalming fluid? The latter is definitely legal as outlawing it would violate freedom of religion.
Personally, I like the sea option. I don’t need real estate when I’m dead. Remove as many toxic materials as possible from my body first, probably including teeth with mercury, then fill my alimentary canal with sand, remove all clothing or leave me with only biodegradable wrapping, and drop me in the ocean to get back in the food chain.
Alternately, as I’ve stated before, I may, if I can still walk well enough, go for a walk somewhere where there are still predators that have human on the menu. Tigers in the Sundabarans, lions in Tsavo, and polar bears if any are left by then, are all options. Reduce, reuse, recycle. We’re just meat.
Scott–why should the sea be replenished instead of the earth?
I don’t know what the carrying capacity of the sea is–but even most sharks reject it in favor of something with more blubber==ok, maybe just average Americans could be put in the ocean. But over time–how many bodies would interfere with bottom dwelling creatures.
I think you are confusing “out of sight” with problem solved?
Better is to turn us into bio gas thru consumption by bacteria. More useful, more controlled, no pollution.
Atleast, we should all have a choice?
#26 – bobbo,
I agree with your point about replenishment of the land rather than the sea. Unfortunately, there are many legal restrictions about dead bodies on land.
Traditional American “burials” either up on a platform of sticks for the birds to peck at or a few feet above mean high tide line on the beach would likely be considered health issues.
Burial underground works, but feeds worms. I want to get back in the food chain a bit higher up. There’s a nice deep food chain at sea. Crabs to gulls and seals. If I could somehow manage to die closer to the west coast, the crabs could be eaten by otters and fish to many species of birds and possibly bears somehow.
I certainly don’t want a 1 x 2 meter plot of land dedicated to me either. So, how soon can one dig there again? Can I be buried somewhere with no marker in a shallow grave? Can I be fed to wolves, foxes, coyotes and others that may scavenge my body? I think there are restrictions about such things on land.
Judaism offers the only protection I’m aware of that at least keeps one away from embalming fluids and brass coffins and the like. And, even though I was born into the culture, the religion does nothing for me. I think I get back into the food chain faster at sea.
Besides, given that the ocean is 90% dead because of us, or at least 90% of the species we typically call food, the ocean needs more replenishment than land.
Again though, my ideal is to feed endangered species if I’m well enough when my life’s pleasure no longer outweighs its pain. So, for me, if possible, it’s lions or tigers or bears, oh my.
Trivia question:
You’re someplace where there actually are lions and tigers and bears (oh my), where are you?
(I know of no very local area that has all three, but there is just a single country that has all three.)
Use rot13 to decypher the answer below if you give up.
Nf sne nf V xabj, bayl gur Vaqvna fhopbagvarag unf yvbaf, gvtref, naq ornef.
I like to leave the answer long so that you can’t get it just by counting the letters in the answer, which match before and after decyphering with rot13.
Can we consider countries with zoo’s ?
I hadn’t seen rot13 mentioned in years !
Mis,
do you consider Puma??
If so then you can consider MOST of n. america and S. america..
When my wife’s parents died last summer (one of cancer, the other of osteoporosis), in their wills they expressly requested direct cremation with a minimum of fuss and no embalming. A neighbor of ours works for a funeral home, and took care of the arrangements. Cost was very low.