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Under the process, billed by Ms Wiigh-Maesak as "ecological burial", bodies are dipped in a bath of freezing liquid nitrogen. The brittle bodies are then mechanically shaken so that they begin to break down into small particles.

Freeze-dried remains buried just under the surface of the ground can return to the ecological cycle much quicker than those buried in deep graves and coffins.

Ms Wiigh-Maesak's company, Promessa Organic, recommends planting a tree above the grave, which can be nurtured as a living reminder of the deceased.

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And for people who still want an element of preservation...

I have no problem with being freeze dried and composted, as long as it doesn't create a financial burden for the family.

Hell, once I'm dead I don't much care what's done to my remains - I won't be in them anymore. My grandfather was cremated and had his ashes spread in the Bow River - I've always found that approach to be most appealing, inasmuch as it matters.

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Originally posted by arborman:
Wouldn't just dumping the body into the middle of the ocean get the remains back into the life cycle pretty quickly?

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Yes, or even burying it without a coffin. But we tend not to allow things like that.

DOn't know about the cost, but in trying I found a neat page called 1001 things to do with Liquid Nitrogen.

My favourite:

Freeze a can of shaving cream and then peel the can away from the cream. Put the canless cream into someone's car. Let the oven-like heat from the car's sitting in the sun defrost the shaving cream.

2 cans will fill an entire car

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Originally posted by Blondin:
I've donated my body to medicine but there is a proviso - they have to promise not to laugh.

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Originally posted by Southlander:
I read that somewhere you can be wraped in a shroud, with no preservatives, and buried one metre down. they plant trees through the area, and optional memorial signs are around the edges. Anyone know where this is? Sounds like a good idea to me.

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It's called "green burial," and a funeral entrepreneur -- there are such people -- is trying to start it up on a large scale in Marin County, California.

But there have been problems:

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Dr. Billy Campbell started the country’s first green-burial cemetery, in South Carolina, in 1998, and Joe Sehee had been [Tyler] Cassity’s [the aforementioned entrepreneur's] media consultant. The three men agreed to work together in 2003, hoping to establish “memorial landscapes” across the country. Campbell’s goal was to save a million acres from development by putting bodies in the ground, a strategy that Sehee likes to call “conservation through consecration.” But it all fell apart, slowly and then, this February, abruptly. The rupture was both personal and philosophical. Cassity might argue that Campbell and Sehee were business novices who, in the end, brought neither funding nor realistic expectations to the equation. Campbell and Sehee might argue that Cassity avoided formalizing the partnership—and that, at Fernwood, his primary concern seemed to them to be not saving land and the environment but, simply, making a profit. Despite all the fury and the consultations with lawyers, though, both Campbell and Sehee really seemed to miss Cassity, and in my piece I write about what happened when they all tried to reconcile not long ago.

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[ 30 September 2005: Message edited by: 'lance ]

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Originally posted by Blondin:
I've donated my body to medicine but there is a proviso - they have to promise not to laugh.

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Perhaps then, like Stephen Wright, you should donate your body to science fiction.

And Boom Boom - make sure that whoever will be in charge of your arrangements is aware of your wishes. No one is likely to read your will before the funeral - it's considered kind of tacky.

[ 30 September 2005: Message edited by: RealityBites ]

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"Are Green Burials something new? In fact, green burials are as old as life itself. Before the practice of embalming and use of sealed caskets became the norm in North America (initially, because of the long distances human remains often needed to be transported), virtually all burials were green. Even today, in many small, rural cemeteries, it may still be possible to be buried “green.”.

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posted by Southlander: I read that somewhere you can be wraped in a shroud, with no preservatives, and buried one metre down. they plant trees through the area, and optional memorial signs are around the edges. Anyone know where this is? Sounds like a good idea to me.

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Originally posted by Boom Boom:
Good point, RB. I'l give my priest instructions in an envelope kept for that purpose. She's a good friend and I trust her.

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