Composting and water cremation: how the eco credentials of alternatives to burial add up

By Lynn Akesson, Professor Emerita of Ethnology in the Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences, Lund University

There’s a growing interest in alternatives to traditional burials as well as making the process more environmentally friendly in many countries. For many people it’s about the environmental impact of the funeral industry globally.

In the US, for instance, a surface equal to the size of Hawaii (1.6 million hectares) is deforested each year for manufacturing coffins. The amount of wood used is equal to building 4.5 million…

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