Below the Fold - the birth of the green burial

View this email in your browser

WELLNESS CHECK
This edition leans...

BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

Tens of thousands of TikToks are posted every minute. 6,000 tweets are sent every second. 14.58 million Facebook photos are uploaded per hour, and there’s no telling how many are boomer memes. We read the internet so you don’t have to. Sign up for the Daily Dot newsletter to receive only the best of the web.

Hey Below the Fold fam,

Happy (almost) Halloween! We’re ending the week with a spoOoOoky edition on… the future of death. 👀 Well, at least the future of how our bodies are dealt with after death.

TODAY'S STORY

The birth of the green burial
Mon Jul 19

Even death has a ghoulish carbon footprint. And as concern grows over the impact burial services have on the environment, alternatives have been emerging. Of course, burials vary between personal and religious preferences, but most green alternatives hope to address the issues surrounding caskets and cremations. Why?

Casket burials require a lot of wood — an estimated four million acres of forest annually in the U.S. alone. And preserving the body for an open casket ceremony uses toxic embalming fluid to keep a body looking “alive.” The fluid is made of formaldehyde, phenol, methanol, and glycerin, and can burn exposed flesh (of workers handling it) and be lethal at high concentrations; it also pollutes the environment.
Meanwhile cremation, which over 50% of Americans now prefer, releases harmful chemicals into the atmosphere such as carbon monoxide, fine soot, sulfur dioxide, heavy metals, and, very worryingly, mercury emissions from dental fillings.

If, like 84% of Americans, you’re spooked by these problems and are considering a greener burial, what are the options? One growing alternative is a cremation “reef ball.” Weighing anywhere from 600 to 4,000 pounds, these reef balls incorporate cremated ashes and are released into the ocean to replenish reef systems. That said, it’s a costly endeavor, currently averaging just under $4,000 (not including the cost of cremation).

The Netherlands introduced a more affordable alternative through mushroom coffins. These living coffins are (as their name implies) made of mushrooms and are both lighter and less expensive than a traditional coffin. The main benefit to the environment is its ability to speed up the body’s decomposition process from 10 years to less than three.

🎬 Take Action

On a more serious note, burials in general are an expensive process. The average burial costs around $10,000 and many are not prepared for the burden this leaves on loved ones. Consider starting a savings fund.

Post

Share

RESOURCE CENTER

Washington Post:
(Where we found this story)
3 months old | 9 minutes long

Business Insider:

Burials toll on environment
6 years old | 7 minutes long

Bangkok Post:
The mushroom coffin
1 year old | 4 minutes long

New York Times:

Varying green burials
2.5 years old | 13 minutes long

ICYMI (AGAIN)

Yesterday: Going green may mean giving up artificial scarcity
Wednesday: This Tennessee County jails kids at alarming rates
Tuesday: Berlin’s complicated victory over public housing

ASCII-ING ABOUT THE NEWS

               _  /)
               mo / )
               |/)\)
                /\_
                \__|=
               (    )
               __)(__
         _____/      \\_____
        |                  ||
        |  _     ___   _   ||
        | | \     |   | \  ||
        | |  |    |   |  | ||
        | |_/     |   |_/  ||
        | | \     |   |    ||
        | |  \    |   |    ||
        | |   \. _|_. | .  ||
        |                  ||
*       | *   **    * **   |**      **
 \))ejm96/.,(//,,..,,\||(,,.,\\,.((//

These green burials are to die for.

Art Credit: ascii.co.uk

Below the Fold

2261 Market St # 4135

San Francisco, CA 94114-1612

Add us to your address book

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

Below the Fold - the birth of the green burial

🎬 Take Action

RESOURCE CENTER

ICYMI (AGAIN)

Older messages

go green or stay exclusive?

kids locked up for fake crimes

from Vienna to Berlin

can passing gas affect your wellbeing?

fake health cures and advice on social media

You Might Also Like

AI chatbots keep failing every accuracy test thrown at them

Everything We’ve Written About That’s on Sale at Nordstrom

What A Day: Bad Car-ma

Rohingya refugees just lost half of their food aid. Now what?

Shayne Coplan’s Big Bet Is Paying Off

We need your input.

We Talkin’ About Practice?

Seattle startup takes eco-friendly aim at recycling clothing

☕ The beauty of it all

🤔 What’s in your wallet? A scam.