Let’s say I’m a 44 year old homeless man with no will and one day I die of a heart attck on the park bench that I’ve been sleeping on. Do I get cremated or buried?
Man: Um, well, um, which would you recommend?
Undertaker: Well they’re both nasty. If we burn her, she gets stuffed in the flames, crackle, crackle, crackle, which is a bit of a shock if she’s not quite dead. But quick. And then you get a box of ashes, which you can pretend are hers.
Man: (timidly) Oh.
Undertaker: Or, if you don’t wanna fry her, you can bury her. And then she’ll get eaten up by maggots and weevils, nibble, nibble, nibble, which isn’t so hot if, as I said, she’s not quite dead.
Here in Queensland, homeless people (or anyone else, for that matter) who dies with no next of kin or anyone to pay funerary expenses are generally buried.
The law states that the coffin must have clean sheeting/bedding, and they get a Minister to say a few words for the deceased and perform the necessary religious rites (so tough luck if you’re an Atheist or a Pagan!).
And before anyone worries how I know this, there was a very interesting article in The Courier-Mail (Brisbane’s newspaper) a year or so ago on this, which I read with interest as one of those “You know, I’ve always idly wondered what the story with that was…” things…
most places have a “potter’s field” that is used to bury those that are not claimed. they tend to have been bought by a trust that someone has left for the purpose.
in phila. there are quite a few people who left money for burials. i saw the list of donors on an auditing report for the city. some people left money into some very interesting trusts, some from the early 1700’s! trusts, not just for burials anymore!
usually there is a group of (rotating) clerics that are called to preform services for the burials.
Since the county usually pays for pauper burial/cremation they will take the cheapest way out.
Most likely creamation. No embalming, no grave digging, no box, no stone.
OTOH The NG shortage may run up the cost of creamation to compete with a traditional burial!
Can I choose to be buried when I die without embalming fluid?
My husband is deputy warden in a prison. Indigent inmates who have no family willing or able to pay to have the inmate buried elsewhere are interred on site. They don’t cremate the remains or embalm them before burial. They bury them in a small prison grave yard, using Styrofoam coffins, and the graves are marked with a 4X4 stone with a number carved on it.
Well, I was always told that if I were to be buried, by law I needed embalming fluid. If this not the case, what is the most envirementally friendly way of disposing of my body?
No state in the US has laws which require embalming. Jessica Mitford in her book “The American Way of Death” posits the notion that spreading this lie this was a sleazy tactic used by some unscrupulous funeral parlor owners in order to pad up their bills.
The most environmentally friendly way to be buried is to have the unembalmed corpse placed in a degradable casket. (They sell special ones just for that purpose now.) Thou art dust, and to dust thou shall return and all of that jazz.
http://www.uscj.org/Guide_to_Jewish_Fune6211.html
When my grandfather died, I witnessed a discussion between my mother and the funeral home representative. She wanted “the shot,” which is an injection given to the departed to make sure he is . . . well, departed.
Modern embalming is not designed to preserve the body after burial. I serves three purposes:
http://www.bartonfuneral.com/embalming.htm
- Id. *
According to Penny Colman, in Corpses, Coffins, and Crypts: A History of Burial, most potter’s fields are mass graves. “In Chicago, Illinois, they are buried in groups of about thirty-five in a memorial park. In New York City they are ferried to Hart Island for burial in a mass grave.”
And see, http://www.picturethehomeless.org/taxonomy/term/48
Most jurisdictions will bury you. Apparently, Brevard County, Florida has a program that assists the indigent with cremation expenses, but you would have to request cremation before you died. http://countygovt.brevard.fl.us/Human_Services/burial.cfm
Green Burial is probably the moste environmentally friendly. Some complain that cremation uses a lot of fuel, and involves some toxic emissions. http://www.promessa.se/kremering_en.asp
Susanne Wiigh-Masak of Sweden founded a company named Promessa that promotes organic composting. According to Mary Roach in Stiff: The Curious Lives Of Human Cadavers Wiigh-Masak has the support of King Carl Gustav and the Church of Sweden. The cadaver is (or will be) lowered into a vat of liquid nitrogen and frozen. Ultrasound waves or mechanical vibration shatters it into pieces about the size of ground chuck. The pieces are freeze-dried ‘and used as compost for a memorial tree or shrub, either in a churchyard memorial park or in the family’s yard.’ (According to the book, cremains make very poor fertilizer.)
Kevin McCabe, of Mcabe Funeral Homes in Farmington Hills, Michigan, suggests ‘water reduction’. The process was invented by Gordon Kaye and Bruce Webber.
Basically, the body is disintegrated with lye and water under pressure, which destroys pathogens (including, Roach notes, prions – which in cattle causes mad cow disease). It doesn’t pollute, and it’s ten times cheaper than cremation because no natural gas is used. (Equipment only costs about $100,000.) While the liquid simply goes down the drain, the bones could be dried and either pulverised for scattering or put in an ossuary.