Biodegradable Coffins What Do You Think?

[seedcorn]

You might be onto something @Pulsegleaner. With all the coyotes around, maybe we could volunteer our bodies for coyote bait. Friends and family could gather to shoot them. LOL LOL

We're going to be cremated. Just paid over $8,000 for my mom's funeral and she already had the plot and headstone.

Been told that cremation isn't any cheaper. I don't know. I don't want a site that the kids feel obliged to visit. I want to live in their mind (if I ever get grands) in their memories. I want to be that crazy 'OL coot they tell stories on.

 

[Carol Dee]

IF you have a coffin and viewing before the cremation, the cost may be much the same. But direct cremation without the coffin IS less. Then a plot may not be necessary saving you even more. Our little cemetery will allow 2 (Possibly 4 boxes of cremains in/on the same plot. ) Hey @Nyboy look what your thread started.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

You might be onto something @Pulsegleaner. With all the coyotes around, maybe we could volunteer our bodies for coyote bait. Friends and family could gather to shoot them. LOL LOL

We're going to be cremated. Just paid over $8,000 for my mom's funeral and she already had the plot and headstone.

Well, there is something rather similar that is sort of like that as well, the "Towers of Silence" Zoroastrians use for disposal. Leave the body on top of an open platform and let the crows take care of the rest.

In truth I've always been of two minds on whether this or sky burial was the better choice. On one hand, the tower is marginally less intimate (since no one actually has to cut the body apart and actually hand the pieces to the vultures). On the other hand I imagine it takes longer, and there still is the matter of dealing with the bones the animals leave over (traditionally they are thrown into a pit in the center of the tower to turn to dust, but I imagine that takes a very long time. In contrast part of a sky burial involve basically smashing all of the bones apart, so the vultures get get at the marrow and such (well, any bones they don't plan to use, the Tibetans sometimes DO make religious items out of some (skull cups, thighbone trumpets, bone rosaries) as a symbol of the transience of life.

Incidentally I seem to recall reading that, back in the 70's someone came up with a cremation variant where bodies would be freeze dried and pulverized (same storage options as cremation, but no air pollution)

 

[catjac1975]

Personally, if it was legal in this country (it isn't) I always liked the idea of a Tibetan Sky Burial (that's where they cut you up into pieces and feed you to vultures) To me at least, becoming part of the food chain is as environmentally idea a disposal method as one can get.

oooohhh gross.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

and sticking you in a hole in the ground for bugs to munch on, or barbecuing you until your a pile of carbon is somehow less gross?

 

[seedcorn]

So what mortician got the laws passed that you have to have a custom built coffin and vault? Why can't we just be thrown in hole, covered, call it good?

 

[digitS']

Well, I'm all for a biodegradable coffin. That's because, a fair amount of me will be all biodegraded, after.

It took me awhile to get to this thread. I have been in a fairly good mood today, a feeling of accomplishment setting in. I didn't want to hurry on to set ... as in finished and in concrete.

I dislike that idea of a vault - unless ... But, you know, try as we might, biodegrading will occur.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust ...

Baskets might be okay but coffins should be easily formed out of dust and ashes. They wouldn't have to be of any organic origin.

When I was a kid, I used to enjoy finding a block of pumice, we called it pummy stone. I'd chuck it in the Rogue and watch it float, downriver.

Pummy, uh, pumice is volcanic ash, more or less.

Huh? Float off . Metaphorically. Keep the remains out of water - at least until that ashes and dust coffin serves its purpose with cremation or a few centuries of burial.

Steve

 

[secuono]

Why in the world are you searching weird stuff on craiglist?

Mary

Life is more interesting with a little weird mixed in!




I want a 7ft hole dug in the woods where it's peaceful, my body w/o chemicals, and any pretty looking rock or driftwood used as a headstone or no headstone.

 

[Smiles Jr.]

Direct Cremation for Dh and I. Family knows are wishes.

What is direct cremation? I've never heard of that.

 

[Just-Moxie]

Always a good topic to bring up sometime...with the family.
I want cremation. I don't want to be fussed over, and preserved. I don't want a too fancy, expensive box. I don't want any headstone. Just sprinkle my ashes on the ground somewhere. I would even prefer the compost pile! I love making compost