Everything Is Biodegradable. Especially You

Meet your new burial plot:

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Yeah, I was tooling around on one of my favorite sites the other day.. us-funerals.com.. and learned that "Green Burials" are becoming all the rage.

It makes sense doesn't it? I mean people don't want to leave a large carbon footprint while they're living so why would they want to leave one when they die?

Those big caskets last for ages. Especially the metal ones. They have steel, stainless steel, copper, bronze...even gold plated!

The cost is insane

And the cost, good grief. 5 to $25, 000? Gold plated caskets are $40,000! And that's just the casket. In most places they place the casket in a concrete burial vault.

Then the grave marker or headstone, have you priced a nice one lately? lol. Don't die unless you're rich enough to pay for your funeral.

We're poisoning alot of ground

So you have the caskets and vault which last forever and on top of that you have the toxic chemicals. Formaldehyde is one of the main ingredients in embalming fluids.

That's some bad stuff. It's on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's list of the top 10 most hazardous chemicals for damaging the environment. Yikes.

Yeah it eventually leaks out, gets into the soil and can get down into water supplies. So Green burials use no embalming fluids.

You can see why Green burials are appealing

Thus, you have a growing movement for Green Burials and all for sound ecological reasons. I think every state in the country is doing this and I doubt if the United States is a leader in the Green movement is it?

So that means the whole world is doing it. Everything involved in the burial is biodegradable. Instead of a big, expensive, massive thing like this:

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You can have this basket casket(at a fraction of the cost):

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Or this cozy wool casket:

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Or even this cardboard box. This is the least expensive of course, with a price of $500!:

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And your burial plot can look like this:

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There ARE drawbacks

The bad thing is, there ain't no headstone to mark your final resting place. In fact, your final spot isn't known exactly but the funeral home gives your GPS coordinates. lol.

At each lot or field, there's a boulder and your name is engraved on there.

But family and relatives can't come and place flowers on your headstone and "talk to you" like they do in the movies.

So is it worth the environmental impact reduction to forego a place where you can be visited and memorialized?

Get 'em in the ground

Another thing to consider: with no preservatives or embalming fluids the bodies start to decompose pretty fast so the funeral has to be done in a couple of days.

That could make things difficult for family and friends in other parts of the country.

I'm SO interested in what you guys think! Let me know if you think this is the best, most natural way to go. From dust we came and to dust we return....or do we deserve more than that?

Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy
Texas
the gentleman redneck

PS- I was reading this really fun article the other day where they picked one photo for each state in the Union that would best represent that state. You know, the state's general culture or what is thought to be stereotypical of that state.

It was so funny that I'm going to post a photo for a different state each day along with their state motto.

First up is Alabama. This one is so funny because I used this exact photo in one of my redneck posts about redneck innovations. lol.

Alabama's state motto is: “We Dare Defend Our Rights"

I guess this ol redneck defends his right to build a fishing boat from insulation and a lawn chair:

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