Dark thought right? Well it's something that we should all think about, so why not now? Many of you may not care what happens - you'll be dead - so what ever, but I couldn't rest easy at night knowing all my possessions would be thrown in the garbage when I die. So why shouldn't I think about what will happen with my body? There are many options to pick from, some awesome, some terrible.
The most common choice is a cemetery, but honestly there are many draw backs. It is a lot of money for a cemetery plot, and then you must factor in things like your casket and head stone and many other expenses. This could all end up being a huge burden on your family.
There is also environmental concerns regarding the chemicals used when embalming and materials that go into making caskets. Though these are pretty avoidable, you must still wonder how much space cemeteries take up, and what we could be doing with it. As well as just how much water we use keeping the grass nice and clean.
My aunt made an argument against them a few days ago saying she didn't want her loved ones to feel the need to spend money on flowers and go out of their way to visit . I agree with all points, and it isn't where I hope to end up.
The next option for normal people would be cremation. While the price is the the cheapest your going to get, it is not my preferred method of disposal.
It is not the perfect solution, traditional style burials may be worse on the environment but cremation is not much better. The burning of bodies releases many greenhouse gases as well as other toxic ones pollutimg the air. They also require quite a bit of energy to upkeep.
Another issue is you are depriving life from taking back your nutrients. Even if your ashes are spread around, they provide no benecit to other life, in fact it may even be toxic to it.
So where does that leave us? Well luckily there are a few more options you may be interested in. The first is to donate your body to science, and there are many programs that greatly benefit humanity. Unfortunately you don't exactly get to choose which one your body will go to.
The most common destination for one who donated there body would be in front of a med student allowing them to get real experience without having to operate on a living person. This is a very valuable pursuit since you can only get so far with models and dummy's.
There are some other destinations though, the most interesting ones are known as body farms and stick corpses in various locations in order to research the states of decomposing bodies are in after spending x amount of time there. This helps investigations determine a time of death when a body has been in say, a dumpster for a few days.
However donated bodies will end up being buried in a cemetery or cremated anyways. Though the price of cremations is usually handled so that's a plus, but what else do we have?
How about burials at sea? Historically performed by navy's out of necessity rather then choice, this option is becoming more and more popular with lovers of the sea and those trying to reduce their environmental impact. Barring embalming and caskets, this is the most friendly method I've discussed so far.
Your not wasting tons of land and water that could be used for something more important. It also allows your body to decompose naturally, in an environment that will feed new and existing life.
The first drawback for this is that sometimes the metal weighing down the bodies slips off, potentially leading to someone discovering a dead body.
There is also the expense, you would think dumping a body in the ocean would be cheap but its not. In many countries it requires a special permit, and when ever you need a permit your talking about a lot of money. If this method interests you, it may cost around 2 grand to accomplish. Much cheaper then a cemetery plot, but expensive since they are just dumping a body into the water.
Some people with lots of land are offering woodland burials. In order to rest in one you are not allowed to be embalmed and must have a biodegradable coffin. There are usually no headstones allowed either, though loved ones can mark the spot by planting trees and flowers.
They are not cheap, but from a little bit of research you can a plot for around 1-2 grand. Which is much cheaper then then the cemeteries I know. The fact that you save on cheap biodegradable caskets and not embalming is a big plus. Out of everything you can legally choose, this is what I want.
What if you want something really weird? Well do I have the funeral for you. The practice has been found in many cultures, but Tibetan Buddhists are most well known for it. I'm talking about sky burials.
For those of you who haven't heard and wondering how you bury someone in the sky, allow me to explain. Finding the most giving way of disposing the dead Buddhists would take the bodies to the tops of mountains and let it decompose and be eaten by scavenger bones. The bones that are left are then pulverized and turned into a paste, also to feed the birds.
While this is my favorite method, it is not an accepted practice in most countries. So your on your own trying to get this, but it does happen.