Atypical afterlives — Alternatives to traditional burials can have positive impacts for families and the environment

One of the oldest traditions in western culture is finally getting an environmentally conscious makeover.

Cremation and burial processes have remained largely unchanged for the past thousand years, but initiatives across the world are beginning to reevaluate how we honor and send off those who have passed.

Alternative burial methods have come into vogue recently, with a variety of options in place of a usually rather expensive process. According to a Huffington Post article, a typical burial can cost as much as $11,000 after embalming, casket and funeral considerations are taken into account, which is often an unwelcome cost in the face of loss.

Now, there are many viable alternatives to the typical embalming, casket and funeral that place less strain on the grieving family and create some form of good for the community.

Some of the more common alternatives to the typical burial, like tree burial and recomposition, have floated around social media, often with eco-conscious commentary. These alternatives focus on repurposing the human body to nurture more life in the future and provide some tangible remembrance of a person after their passing.

Jonah Baker | Argonaut

Across the border in Pullman, Washington State University is getting in on alternatives to burial. According to the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, A Seattle-based nonprofit called the Urban Death Project is in the beginning phases of collaborating with the WSU Department of Crop and Soil Sciences to look at how human bodies can be repurposed into a sort of afterlife. The collaboration would look at how human bodies can be repurposed as nutrient-rich soil and would follow precedents set by using deceased livestock in a similar manner.

Many other environmentally-focused ‘afterlives’ are available, like using bodily remains to nurture trees and artificial reefs. Both of these alternatives cost significantly less than traditional burial.

The most glaring roadblock for this type of initiative is that people will almost assuredly be uncomfortable with their loved ones not receiving what society would call a ‘proper’ send-off. However, environmentally focused alternatives to burial solve a few of the problems raised by traditional burials.

In the case of the Urban Death Project and their recomposition program, there is no cost incurred and all the grieving family has to do is donate the body. Avoiding burial also does not contribute to rampant cemetery overcrowding, and allows for real estate within cities and towns to be committed to more productive uses.

A Guardian report found that in certain countries like Singapore and Germany, families do not have to pay for the real estate their deceased loved ones reside in for the first 20 years. After that time period, the families must again make accommodations for the deceased and either pay for that space or move them elsewhere.

Moving past these traditions puts less stress on the grieving families and allows for responsible action for the environment. While these new alternatives cannot necessarily ease the grieving process, they can remove a substantial amount of financial burden while simultaneously making a positive impact.

Death will always be an unfortunate fact of life, but expensive accommodations afterward do not have to be.

Jonah Baker can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @jonahpbaker