10 Alternatives To Being Buried or Cremated

We all know death is inevitable…..But what if you don’t want to be buried or cremated? Here are 10 Alternatives to Burial or Cremation

One day, we will all die, but we now have a huge choice of places where we’d like to end up once we depart this life. It isn’t just buried or burnt anymore!  Here are 10 alternatives to the traditional casket burial or cremation.

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1. You Can Be Freeze-Dried

A Swedish environmental consultant has come up with a super cool (see what I did there?) alternative. The body is freeze-dried in liquid nitrogen while being blasted at the same time with ultrasound waves. The brittle remains are then crushed to create a hygienic soil-enriching powder.

The process hasn’t been tried on a human yet, only on pigs and cows, but it is estimated that an 80-kilogram person could potentially generate about 20kg of powder

2. Become an ‘Eternal Reef’

A company called Eternal Reefs will turn your cremains (cremated remains) into a permanent reef. The ashes are mixed with concrete and shaped into reefs. The reefs then go into the water and provide a new habitat for fish to explore.

3. Become a Diamond!

Now this one can be a bit pricey, up to $25K, but if you love fine gems, then this one is for you. ‘Memorial Diamonds’ are where can take your ashes and make them into a diamond. It uses the same process with which synthetic diamonds are made, the only difference being that the carbon used to start the process is actually taken from your remains.

In Australia there are a few businesses that will make you shine including:

• Lonite
• Heart-in-Diamond
• Immeryours

4. Decompose in a ‘Mushroom Death Suit’

If you are happy to be buried but don’t want to stay a withered corpse in a casket, why not speed up the decomposition process and be buried in a Mushroom Death Suit? The suit is embedded with mushroom spores and once it comes into contact with your body, which is covered in a liquid spore slurry, a mixture of dry mineral makeup and dried mushroom spores and a separate liquid culture medium.

5. Become a tree in an ‘Organic Burial Pod’

Italian design duo Anna Citelli and Raoul Bretzel have imagined a method where your body is inserted into an egg-shaped capsule made of biodegradable materials and planted deep in the ground. As the capsule and the body breaks down, it will nourish a tree planted above it.  It is now available in Australia.

• The Living Urn

6. Become a Pot Plant

This one again uses your cremains. The Bios Urn is made from 100% biodegradable materials. The ashes are placed inside a special capsule that will help plants to grow.

7. Be Laid to Rest in the Ocean in a Water Urn

A Bio Water or Ground Burial Urn is made from 100% biodegradable materials so that your ashes can be cast out to sea or buried in the ground.

8. A ‘Soft Burial’ – Go in a Leaf Cocoon

The Leafcocoon is a much softer, more comfortable alternative to a coffin though I’m not sure if that’s such a priority once you’re dead! It is handmade in England from a wool felt material and moulded into, as the name suggests, a leaf-shaped cocoon. It is fully biodegradable and environmentally friendly.

9. Be made into a pencil

Human remains are mostly carbon. You now know that your ashes can be made into a diamond, but if that’s not in your budget, how about a box of graphite pencils? Although still in the concept stage, theoretically, one human’s remains could be turned into 240 pencils.

10. Be poured down the drain

If you’re not fussed about where you end up after you die, this one may be for you. Using a process called alkaline hydrolysis, your corpse is liquefied in a steel cylinder with a combination of lye, heat and pressure. The process produces a thick, brown liquid that can be safely poured down the drain.

Have you thought about your death ?