The Environmental Impacts of Death

Go Green! We hear this all the time. Now more than a trend and as a response to an ever-growing need to be eco-conscious, the green movement has become a centerpiece of discussion in our society in everyday life. 

But what about in death?  How green are our current burial practices? 

If you’re lucky like myself, you don’t have a lot of firsthand experience with death (knock on wood!) So, if you’re like me, the first thing we need to do to answer this question is to look at what all actually goes into the burial process.

There are many choices on how to dispose of remains that all come with their own set of ecological impacts, but for our purposes, we are going to focus on burial specifically. 

First, there is the embalming process. The body is disinfected. The extremities are massaged to loosen them up. The eyelids are secured shut either using glue or plastic inserts. The lower jaw is set using either wires or sewing. 

After the positioning of the corpse, the blood is then removed from the veins and replaced with embalming fluid, a potent chemical solution. All of the internal organs are punctured in order to release any gas or liquid. They are also injected with the embalming solution.

Once the chemicals are in place, the face of the corpse is then made more acceptable for viewing using makeup. The body will be dressed in clothing and accessories as chosen by the family. The body is placed in a casket, which can be made of metal, wood or fiberglass. This ends the process before the funeral service.

Regardless of personal experience, we are a little more familiar with this part. The family stands around crying. The priest is praying, maybe. The casket is lowered down into a hole in the ground. Later, a headstone will be placed to mark the burial. Everyone disperses to drink wine, eat cheese, and leave the grieving family with many casseroles that taste like sadness. 

What is in embalming fluid that is so toxic? 

Formaldehyde. Phenol. Methanol. Glycerin. All of which are either carcinogens or will irritate or burn you if it comes in contact with your eyes, nose, throat, skin or lungs. 

The workers who prepare the bodies are exposed to these harmful chemicals first, and then it gets into our soil. Almost 3 million people died in 2019. Thankfully, they didn’t all choose burial as their disposal method. However, it is still estimated that more than 800,000 gallons of those chemicals are released into the earth each year due to our burial practices. 

Then, we have the plastic fibers in clothing and accessories we dress the dead in and other trinkets we might throw along with them. They don’t need these belongings, but nevertheless, we litter the planet with more plastic.  

At first glance, the caskets don’t seem like a big deal, right? Wrong. The wood caskets used every year are made from millions of acres of trees. We could use this wood for more important tasks, like building homes. Or, hey, we could not cut down the trees at all and keep our ecosystems in tact and our air clean.

Let’s go deeper now into maintenance. It isn’t enough to preserve our loved ones and say goodbye. We keep going back to see them. And since some people choose to revisit their buried friend or family member anywhere from every couple of hours to every day to once a week or once a year, it creates a need for a well-maintained yard containing the bodies. 

Gallons of water and more chemicals are needed for this upkeep. Again, the chemicals used for landscaping are usually toxic and can harm our water supply and wildlife. Not to mention all the land space that’s taken up just filled with dead bodies. What better ways can you think of to use the 1 million acres at least of cemetery lands? 

We know plastic is a problem. We know deforestation is an issue. We know protecting our planet, wildlife and water supply is more important than ever. Not just in the United States, but all over the world. 

When it comes to the dead, our convictions should not be tossed aside or ignored just because this is the traditional way. Like many old traditions, it will take some time to phase out the norm. We need to find new ways to honor them while keeping in mind the facts we know now. We need to be mindful of our impact on the planet. 

And if going green isn’t really your thing, think about this: The average funeral costs almost $7500. And the funeral industry is not shy about trying to get you to upgrade or purchase add-ons. Like every other material industry, we are pressured and feel the need to keep up with the Joneses. We need the best casket and the best outfit and the best headstone for the best spot in the cemetery. I don’t know about you, but if I needed to respect the wishes of a relative tomorrow, I simply wouldn’t be able to afford it. 

I think it is important to honor and respect our relatives and dear friends, remember and memorialize them. We should do it in a way that doesn’t cause a family to go into debt, another struggle to add to losing someone dear. 

How can we start to change our ideas surrounding death and burial?

It starts with conversations and awareness. It is amazing that in 2021, talking about death is still considered taboo or impolite conversation. It is my opinion that if we can have more honest conversations about death, we could have a more unified understanding of something I believe is at the very center:

Our living bodies and our material belongings will not be joining us on the other side.

For those of us who believe in something more than you live-you die, our souls should be the focus of our passing. Making sure that our soul is pure, making sure what we leave behind is not chemicals and jewels in a casket made from the forests, but instead we should leave behind a positive legacy of memories that inspires others to truly live and appreciate what time has been gifted to them. 

When we understand this and we focus on our souls, the state of our physical being becomes a non-issue and we can embrace cheaper, more eco-friendly ways to say goodbye.

I will leave you with this thought: How can our new funerary traditions and celebrations become sources of happiness, inspiration and ecological responsibility?

I would love to hear your thoughts so don’t forget to comment!

Beyond Decomposition: The use of ‘body farms’ in research

Imagine this: You are a scientist at a University that has finally approved your request to do outdoor forensic research using real human remains. The first few unclaimed bodies are shipped to you, a present from the local morgue.

You take each body and set them under certain conditions. One is put head first into a body of water, legs resting on land. Another is secured under a cage in direct sunlight, free from disturbances from animals. The last one is nude and covered with shrubbery and dark plastic.

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Every day, you check on the bodies to see how the decomposition is being affected by the varying conditions. You stick with your research through the bloating and all. The smell of rotting human flesh has become almost normal.

Sounds like a job for a character in a horror movie, right?

Since 1981, this has been a very real scenario for forensic anthropology faculty and students. The first outdoor research center for forensic taphonomic processes was opened by anthropologist Dr. William Bass at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

Today in the U.S., there are six operational facilities:

Colloquially, these facilities are referred to as body farms, although some view the term as disrespectful.

“People like me intended no irreverence when we called it that, for no one respects the dead more than those of us who work with them and hear their silent stories.  The purpose is to help the living. That was the point when The Body Farm came into being more than twenty years before, when scientists got determined to learn more about time of death.  On any given day its several wooded acres held dozens of bodies in varying stages of decomposition. Research projects had brought me here periodically over the years, and though I would never be perfect in determining time of death, I had gotten better.” -Patricia Cornwell, The Body Farm (1994)

Not only do Cornwell’s words address the issue of respect toward the dead, they als0 provide an example of the importance of these research facilities in improving forensic skill.

The research done at body farms in becoming increasingly essential to the furthering of knowledge about different rates of decomposition, insect activity and animal scavenging. Projects can range from how climate and environment affect decomposition to how bodies react to being frozen.

The data from such research an assist forensic experts in real-life investigations in establishing traits like postmortem interval, or the time that’s passed since a person’s death. Body farms also serve other functions such as training centers for forensic anthropology students, law enforcement and cadaver dogs.

So far, the only body farms are located within the U.S.The problem with this is the research tends to be climate-specific. U.S. states and countries without body farms don’t have the taphonomic data for their region. This is why it is so important for the public in other countries to be educated about forensic research, to garner support for the building of such facilities abroad.

Australia, near the new facility. (Original Source)

The first one outside of the U.S. will most likely be located in Australia at the University of Technology, Syndey. The Australian Facility for Taphonomic Experimental Research, as it will be called, will be the first step in catching up other parts of the world with this type of forensic advancement.

The United Kingdom is also behind with forensic anthropological research. In the UK, pigs are being used in taphonomic pursuits. Unfortunately, the variability of humans makes the research on pigs less meaningful or applicable.

The UK is in need of a outdoor human body farm – but there are a lot of obstacles before that can happen. Citizens are expressing concern about where human research facilities will be located and how it will affect them. There isn’t the same opportunity for isolation of a facility there as in the States. Then, there’s funding and obtaining the bodies.

Who knows when these obstacles will be overcome? Until the conditions are met and the UK and other countries can move forward in this process, the potential to expand the breadth of scientific research for the sake of research as well as for application in medicolegal cases is at a halt.

 

Homosexuality isn’t ‘unnatural’; neither is your ignorance

During a conversation recently, someone turned to me and said, “There weren’t gays back then.” When I tried to correct this person’s ignorance by telling them there have been homosexuals since the beginning of human time, they simply said, “prove it.”

Well, I don’t need to prove it because others have already done that for me.

Homosexuality was commonplace in Rome. They didn’t identify as hetero- or homosexual. Instead, they identified as dominant and submissive. Engaging in homosexual behavior didn’t automatically strip away a man’s masculinity.

In Egypt homosexuality wasn’t very prevalent. However, Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep’s tomb is considered by some to be the earliest evidence of a homosexual couple. The pair was found buried together surrounded by sensual scenes of the two canoodling. In life, they were manicurists of the king (2380 to 2320 B.C.).

A man of the late Stone Age was found buried facing east surrounded by domestic wares. This burial screams female, but the sex of the skeletal remains was male. Here we see a discrepancy between funerary ritual and biological sex. In this culture, males were usually buried with weapons and other “manly” goods. It was also posited that these remains could be of an unknown “third gender.”

‘Far more likely is that he was a man with a different sexual orientation, homosexual or transvestite. What we see here does not add up to traditional Corded Ware cultural norms,’ said researcher Kamila Remisova Vesinova in an article.

Besides these cases, homosexuality is now being studied as a naturally occurring behavior that has evolved genetically.

Even some non-human animals take part in homosexual behavior. Six percent of bighorn sheep are ‘gay’!

This is so important to understand because while marriage equality is a reality in the United States, the treatment of homosexual individuals is still lacking.

 

Fact: Employers in 22 states can still fire you for no reason other than your (homo)sexuality.

Fact: A survey found that 81.9% of students who identify as LGBTQ were bullied based on their sexual orientation.

Fact: About 40% of Americans still oppose same-sex marriage.

Facts (which we’ve already explored): Homosexuality is found in genetics, is natural and has always existed.

So, why is it still a debate among rational modern humans? Why can employers in the U.S. still fire people based on something inherited? Why are children still taught heterosexual superiority?