Headstone hunting genealogist here, with fun facts about burials. * At 1 meter depth, average soil weight on body is 1.6 tons. Coffins will crush. If you buy concrete shell, the concrete acids leach into soil. * Metal coffin parts of steel, copper, brass degrade and leach into soil. * Over 3,028,000 liters (800,000 gallons) of embalming fluid is dumped yearly into the soil and air. It is a carcinogen. * 4 million acres of trees are destroyed yearly just for coffins.

If you aren't embalmed and just put in the ground without a coffin wouldn't you decompose pretty quickly anyway? Maybe it depends on soil conditions.

This is how I'm going. But my son wants to give me a Viking burial and shoot flaming arrows onto a wooden raft as it drifts on Lake Michigan (we live in a city that edges the lake).

I always thought a sky burial was the way to go

Terramation, or NOR natural organic reduction. I think 6 states have made it legal. I keep seeing more and more of it

There are services that will legally scatter your cremated ashes into the ocean, with or without anyone in attendance. Google it and you’ll see the service costs between a few hundred to a few thousand. This is how I’ll finally be able to travel the world and eventually become part of the earth.

or just use a traditional jewish funeral, which is the body wrapped in linen shrouds and direct into the dirt to decompose. Since the US requires a coffin, Jews use a wood coffin to decompose.

I love this concept but still want to go via ash

I love, and would do this, I wonder how much it is? S**t I had to pay $950.00, just to rent a coffin for my husband

@old roadie thank you for all that important info. I did not know all that. I am alrdy set to be donated to science or organs to someone in need. Rest cremated. Always know about ash tree burials. Besides being scattered to wind what are the facts on ocean burials for coral wildlife growth?????!!!

I think it's a fantastic idea.

This should be requied by law.

I want to be one with the Force

Doesn't this happen anyway?

Makes perfect sense to me.

Great idea. I can't see burning so much fossil fuel for a cremation, or a traditional sealed (why???) coffin. There's a natural burial place near my town, so sign me up!

I want this when I die. When all of earth is a wasteland, I can still have my own little ecosystem

it now costs $7000 to do this is Seattle.

Very practical.

Can I choose the type of mushroom? I would want something edible, like portabella or magic...

Hate to be "that guy" but the first living coffin is a hole in the ground. Dirt is full of organisms that'll do just fine without spending all that money.

siiiick

Don't worry, unless you have a very expensive well-sealed vault, it won't take that many years for your coffin to rot, and you as well. It's really not all that natural to decompose 6 ft under ground in either case. I do like the idea though!

Speaking as someone in the funeral industry, I'm glad that these kinds of burials are becoming more popular, slowly but surely. I think it's beautiful that the last of your life (aka, your body) can give to new life. Plus it may be more expensive at first because of the "novelty" but it should also eventually make funerals cheaper, not to mention the environmental goodness compared to traditional burial or even cremation.

Sounds like a gimmick wood would probably do the same thing.