Environmental Issues With Conventional Burial
Each year, 22,500 cemeteries across the United States bury approximately:
- 30 million board feet (70,000 m3) of hardwood caskets
- 90,272 tons of steel caskets
- 14,000 tons of steel vaults
- 2,700 tons of copper and bronze caskets
- 1,636,000 tons of reinforced concrete vaults
- 827,060 US gallons (3,130 m3) of embalming fluid, which usually includes formaldehyde.
When formaldehyde is used for embalming, it breaks down, and the chemicals released into the ground after burial and ensuing decomposition are inert. The problems with the use of formaldehyde and its constituent components in natural burial are the exposure of mortuary workers to it and the destruction of the decomposer microbes necessary for breakdown of the body in the soil.
Read more about this topic: Natural Burial
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—Alfred Jarry (1873–1907)
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—William Cowper (1731–1800)