According to Joshua Slocum, Director of the Funeral Consumers Alliance, the average funeral in the
Embalming is thought of as a permanent way of preserving a body. That is not true. Soon after the funeral time, even embalmed bodies begin the decaying process.
As for the environmental impact of traditional funerals, each year in
827,060 gallons of embalming fluid
90,272 tons of steel (caskets)
2,700 tons of copper and bronze (caskets)
1,636,000 tons of reinforced concrete (vaults)
14,000 tons of steel (vaults)
30-plus million board feet of hardwoods, much of it tropical hardwoods (caskets)
Many tons (estimated) of pesticide and lawn maintenance emissions
The average cemetery buries 1,000 gallons of embalming fluid, 97.5 tons of steel, 2,028 tons of concrete, and 56,250 board feet of high quality wood in each acre of green land.
Source: Mary Woodsen,