In 323 BC when Alexander the Great died, it’s said he was carried in a solid gold casket
in a golden chariot.
Some say a new road was even built to carry the procession from Babylon into Egypt.
This was one of the most expensive funerals of all time.
But modern funerals, although less extravagant, aren’t as different as you might think.
“Three quarters of all caskets sold in the United States are metal.
And that kind of burial is very energy intensive and is very polluting.”
And if you’re thinking cremations are the solution..
“You end up with probably 50 times the safe limit of mercury
coming out of a crematory.
You just wouldn't want to breathe somebody's grandmother
coming out of a crematory.”
And both methods are getting less affordable.
So some people are on the hunt for sustainable and accessible options.
And companies are giving everything a try.
“I like to see myself as compost. Like you’re also a beautiful bag of compost.”
From living coffins that turn you into mulch,
to machines that dissolve all your mortal remains.
So have we now found a truly green way to die?
It’s the one thing that bonds all living beings on earth
(except some immortal jellyfish):
Death!
Of course, the living do have a significantly bigger impact on the planet.
But with around 150,000 people dying every day,
the ways we say goodbye to our loved ones - add up.
Especially considering funeral practices haven’t really changed much since
the beginning of humanity itself.
Neanderthals were found to have buried their dead - which makes the tradition
over 70,000 years old.
The other tradition we follow: Cremation - is also likely to be at least 20,000 years old.
Which one you get is mostly still decided by religion -
Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities traditionally bury the departed,
while Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains 'usually cremate.
But in the modern world neither are great solutions.
In different parts of the world, people are running into different problems.
Islands and densely populated regions, are running out of space.
In Hong Kong, a space in the ground or a niche for remains can cost up to $150,000
- and waiting lists can last for years.
The UK could fill up many of its cemeteries soon.
And Santos in Brazil has already built a 14-storey vertical cemetery
to house its dead, as the ground runs out of space.
The most obvious thing to do would be to recycle graves.
In countries including Greece and the Netherlands, graves are leased for
between 3 and 30 years and then remains are normally shifted out
to make space for the newly dead.
“But places like the US - doesn't have that kind of system.
The UK, Australia, New Zealand don't have a similar kind of system,
then that kind of becomes problematic because we're not reusing the space we have.”
Julie Rugg has one of the most
morbid jobs around –
studying communities and the ways in which
they deal with their dead.
“The trouble that we have at the moment, is it's all about scale.
So when the numbers are small, there'll be huge swathes of population that still have
traditional practices that work because they're in very small communities.
And that's fine.
It's when you move into very big cities, you start to think we've got to
organize this better.
We have cities that doubled and tripled, tripled in size in 10 years.”
But space is one concern, and it’s more of a planning problem really.
Environmentally-speaking, burials and cremations are becoming increasingly
difficult on the planet!
The most impactful is probably the Western, resource-intensive
Christian burial.
Especially in countries that require bodies to be placed in coffins or caskets.
Just in the US, over a million tons of concrete are laid into vaults each year.
Tens of thousands of tons of steel, copper and bronze are moulded into caskets to
be laid underground.
And millions of acres of forest cut down.
Bodies are also now routinely embalmed - that’s when body-fluids are drained and
replaced by chemicals, to give them a more ‘life-like’ appearance for the funeral.
The practice effectively died with the mummies -
and only came back in big way in the mid-19th century
when unpreserved bodies began literally exploding.
During the American Civil War, soldiers were dying on the battlefield
far away from home.
So when their bodies were being brought back, the sweltering heat caused
a build up of gases inside the simple coffins they were using at the time.
It wasn’t a pretty picture for the grieving families back home.
So battle surgeons began embalming bodies again.
With time, the fluids began to include arsenic and mercury -
and more recently cancer-causing formaldehyde.
These have been known to seep out of coffins - and into soil contaminating
the groundwater around cemeteries.
So, with increasing environmental concerns, and rising resource costs,
more people in the West are choosing cremations over burials.
But cremations can be just as toxic.
In the UK it was found that 16% of mercury in the air - came from..
tooth fillings from cremated bodies.
And beyond that, both open and electric cremations, release millions of tons of
carbon dioxide and toxic emissions into the air - including sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide.
“It is quite complicated when it comes down to these things.
The body's not just waste to be disposed of.
We can't just think, what's the easiest way to dispose of this body?
We've got to think about all of this emotion and spirituality and ritual,
you know, at the same time.
And that's the big challenge when it comes to funerals.”
So, around the world, a number of people have been working on options
for those who want to lower their impact in death.
From religion, culture and taste.
So let’s meet our clients, who, often, have death on their minds.
If they were alive today - what method would they choose?
You love all the latest science and tech, don’t you?
I think he would pick Alkaline Hydrolysis.
Also known as 'water cremation',
this process has recently become legal and available for humans in a few countries.
How it works is the body is submerged in a sealed chamber that contains a
water-alkali mix, at a high temperature and pressure.
After a couple of hours, only bones remain.
..which are brittle and easy to crush.
So the family can take ashes home.
This being called one of the greenest methods because, despite the use
of high temperatures..
“It's got six times lower
carbon footprint
than flame cremation.
It uses seven times less energy.
The public are actually choosing it over flame.
And the main reason they give and it seems crazy, I know, they see it as gentler.
Now they're going to be dead, so don't have a consciousness.
But this is human nature for you.”
Witches can turn anything into a useful potion or spell?
I bet you’re wondering what happens to all the leftovers, that dissolved in the water?
“When we're done, you can also get the essence back.
So, that's the liquid part of the body.”
The liquid can be bottled up - and is actually nutritious enough
to become fertilizer.
“So we've had people
take it up to the mountains,
put it in their favourite place, you know.
We've had people put it in pint jars and
give it to the person's friend when they die.
So a whole bunch of people can get, you know, this person.
And it really does perk up the plants and the trees.“
Ed says that with this process, pathogens are completely destroyed,
and its slowing becoming legal.
But not everybody can stomach the idea.
And that is one thing that is holding such technology back - the ‘ick factor’.
Like Jack!
His destiny is to return simply to the soil.
“Have you heard of the living coffins?
Made entirely of mushrooms?
“It actually enables people to
no longer pollute the Earth,
but actually to enrich it
because mycelium are
like the largest recyclers of this planet
and I mean, they want to turn us into plant food.
So why not let them?”
Mushroom coffins take around 45 days to turn themselves and the body into compost,
which could potentially help the soil.
“It's also how we see ourselves.
Because, I mean, would you ever sort of burn a very good pile of
beautiful compost in an oven? No, you would never do that.
But we still do it with over millions of bodies each year.
It would be great if we can go into that mindset of not being wasteful
but being compost.”
You are centuries old, so more of a traditionalist, aren’t you?
Well maybe then, just an old fashioned burial - but you can make it green.
“Green burial is the burial of
an unembalmed body in a
vault-less graves
usually situated in some natural setting, like a field or a woodland or meadow.
The whole idea is to allow the body to decompose naturally and rejoin the elements.
To use what's left of one life to regenerate new life.
To return dust to dust.”
These burials are similar to traditional ones (like most Muslims still do)
but with biodegradable materials.
They do still take up space though, so as long as that’s available it is still a
green and sanitary option.
To die as you live has never been easier!
I personally love the idea of turning into fertilizer for a field of wild flowers.
What about you?
Let us know in the comments below.
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