A BETTER WAY TO GO: HOW TO HAVE A GREENER DEATH

Modern funeral arrangements are trashing the planet. But there are better ways to dispose of your body

- MAGIC TORCH

In most of the world today, the choice of what happens to our remains after we die is a binary one – cremation or burial. But the funeral industry has a dirty secret: it’s terrible for the environment.

A single cremation uses the same amount of energy as an 800km (500-mile) car journey. In the US, where nearly two-thirds of people are cremated when they die, crematoria pump 360,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the atmosphere every year. Incinerated dental fillings release an estimated 1.2g of vaporised mercury per body. And at popular scattering spots, the mineral content and pH of human ashes can alter the composition of the soil and harm delicate plants.

The number of people choosing cremation in the UK has grown year on year since the early 1900s, escalating rapidly in the 50s and 60s as religious and cultural attitudes shifted. In 2024, more than 80 per cent picked cremation over burial.

“The combined result of all that corporeal carbon, plus coffin carbon, plus fossil fuel carbon [to power the furnace] means that we’re dumping thousands of tonnes straight into the atmosphere every year in the UK alone,” says Rosie Inman-Cook, manager of the Natural Death Centre, a UK charity that gives free, impartial advice on all aspects of dying, bereavement and consumer rights.

Traditional burial is hardly better. “I know because I was there; I did the thing,” says John Christian Phifer, who worked as an embalmer and funeral director in his native Tennessee for 15 years. “I’ve seen how much waste goes into the ground. We’re essentially creating landfills.”