Body disposal - the greenest options?

I've blogged about body disposal before, including freeze-drying, ossuaries, 'bio-cremation' and 'green' burial. With population increase comes the increasing problem of what to do with corpses, when space is limited. Britain and Japan (for obvious reasons) favour cremation more than most other countries. In an article in The Conversation, Professor Robert Young of the University of Salford writes that about 80% of the British request cremation due to lack of space, but I don't think that this is strictly true. It was the reason that cremation was originally introduced to Great Britain in the late 19th century, when municipal cemeteries were full. There was a lot of resistance to the idea at the time, mainly from the churches, but the Cremation Act was passed in 1902. It's true that it's a popular choice now, but I think that this has less to do with a shortage of burial space than with a general reluctance to stand beside an open grave at a funeral, which some people find repellent. Cremation happens inside a nice warm building where the coffin disappears behind the scenes so you don't have to think too hard about what's happening to it. Silly, but out of sight, out of mind, is a common attitude.

I was interested in one point made by the professor in his article; that the energy used to cremate one person is equal to the energy they use in one month when alive. "In the UK this translates to a yearly energy consumption of a town of 16,000 people."

When I filled in the forms for my body bequest, I requested the burial of my remains when the students have finished with them. I had a choice between burial or cremation. Other options, such as freeze-drying, would be either too complicated or expensive for the medical school, I assume. However, if there's a glut of cadavers when I pop my clogs and they reject my body, my nearest and dearest will have to organise a funeral. Since a funeral pyre in the back garden is probably out of the question, an alternative must be chosen. I trust them to make the best choice, considering cost and climate change. This is one decision I'm happy to avoid.

Making room for the dead

The news that most British cemeteries are either full, or nearly full, shouldn't be a surprise. The population continues to grow, and so does the demand for burial space. Cemeteries can be fascinating places, with historically interesting headstones and thriving wildlife, but it makes no sense to expect to stake your claim to a burial plot and expect it to remain yours in perpetuity. Many graves are neglected, forgotten or ignored by the descendents of those who occupy them, while the newly dead must be buried wherever there's room.

Maybe it's time to coax the squeamish into considering burying people long enough for full decomposition, before exhuming the bones and storing them in an ossuary? Neatly stacked bones take up far less space than bodies.

Of course there's cremation, which is popular here and in Japan, but even with efficient new cremators, it's not an environmentally-friendly option. Other new methods of disposal include bio-cremation and freeze-drying, but they still use energy, which is also is increasingly short supply.

Dealing with the problem of burial space shortages means dealing with death and with the population problem; two subjects that most people would rather not know about. It's not going to be easy.

________

Here lies father and mother and sister and I,
We all died within the space of one short year;
They all be buried at Wimble, except I,
And I be buried here.

Headstone in a Staffordshire churchyard.

________

Photo of headstone fragments by the wall of St. Peter's Church, Elmsett, Suffolk © M Nelson.
Photo of bones in an ossuary in Sedlec near Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic from the Czech Tourism website.