Green Daily

When it comes to dying the eco-friendly way, we've definitely given quite a bit of coverage to the vast array of green afterlife alternatives at Green Daily. And at the risk of seeming like I have an unhealthy fascination with morbid topics, this crazy bathtime product seems to beg for a discussion of a new subject in eco-friendly deaths -- the environmentally conscious suicide.

The Electric Bath Duck seems to have one purpose and one purpose only. Aside from the slow and insidious threat of phthalates, this rubber ducky is designed to give you instaneous results: electrocution. As morose as some may find it, there are a variety of ways to get the job done, and the suicide rubber ducky has to be close to the bottom of the list when it comes to resource consumption and carbon emissions. First, there's the wasted bathtub full of water, then the wasted kilowatts of electricity -- especially if that power was generated from a coal fired plant.

On a scale from 1 to 10, ten being the greenest, where do you rank rubber ducky suicide?

[via BoingBoing]

It's true that tourists have always found London's double-decker buses endearing, but when it comes to the UK's new burial policy, it seems like they might be taking this double-decker thing a little too far. According to authorities, populous areas in Britain are experiencing a serious shortage of cemetery space. A problem that has prompted the government to allow cemetery workers to disturb gravesites for the first time since 1852.

Kinda crazy, right? In response to the shortage, UK officials have launched a test program that allows cemetery workers to exhume their current residents and rebury them deeper into the earth -- making them stackable. The plan stipulates that graves qualifying for reburial must be over 75 years old, with no living relatives objecting. Sadly, unlike other words that begin with the prefix 're' like recycling, reusing, or regifting -- reburying is decidedly not eco-friendly. Especially because it's most likely done with a gas-guzzling backhoe.

There are plenty of eco-friendly options out there for those who wish to avoid the whole burial -- and later reburial -- process. If you're considering a water burial, you might want to read this first.

You can't take it with you, and as green thinking evolves, more and more people are deciding that they don't want to leave anything behind, either.

Green funerals and natural woodland cemeteries are still relatively new, but for some people an ecologically-conscious ceremony and burial is a simple extension of a lifetime of practices and beliefs.

It's illogical for someone who eschews the resource-hogging and chemical pollution of a golf course to be buried at a traditional green lawn cemetery, which is just as toxic to the environment.

Instead, green minded folks are arranging green funerals and being buried in natural settings, surrounded by trees and wildlife. They skip the embalming and go with coffins made of biodegradable materials like wicker, bamboo and papier-mâché.

And rather than shipping a headstone from some far away quarry, a tree is buried as a living memorial, which is especially nice for the people who are left behind.

Sure, it's a major change from eons of tradition, but a green funeral and burial actually makes more sense than some of the things people do these days, like spending thousands of dollars on exotic wood caskets with silk lining and down cushions.

It's not like any of us are Egyptian Pharaohs who need our fully preserved bodies, and enough furniture to fill a palace, including servants, to achieve success in the afterlife, right?

Good news! Next time one of your loved ones bites the bucket, you have even more eco-friendly options.

We've talked at length about the many ways you opt out of a traditional burial for a more natural, "from dust to dust" approach to dealing with the body. However, for those of you that would still prefer the time-honored casket and tombstone approach, consider this -- the solar-powered tombstone.

Yes, instead of some boring old epitaph, mourners can view a 7-inch screen that displays music, video and photos, so you can speak to the living from the afterlife though the beauty of modern technology. But that's not all! The best part about this novel (albeit slightly macabre) little gadget is that it's solar-powered.

Four hours of sun equals 10 minutes of postmortem media for the bargain basement price of $2,000.

OK, maybe you don't want to drop $2,000 on something so utterly pointless -- or perhaps you'd rather invest that money in something that might help the planet while you're alive (like, say, improving the energy efficiency of your home). But if your dying wish it to be remembered in moving pictures, your epitaphic excess might as run on renewable energy.

[via Groovy Green]

Where will you go when you die? Most likely, you'll either take a dirt nap or float out the chimney of some crematorium. While green burials are fast becoming the hip new way to celebrate your commencement into the afterlife, you're still far more likely to take a more traditional approach. So, here are some things you should know about the big 2.

While it takes a lot of energy to cremate a body, roughly equivalent to driving 4,800 miles, you might be surprised by the level of carbon emissions released from burning your mortal remains -- in terms of pollution, you will burn cleaner than a Big Mac. Measured in unburnt particles per hour, a restaurant cooking burgers releases .46 lbs/hour, the cremation process only emits .08 lbs/hr. Not only that, but many crematoriums have even begun to use a series of filters to catch your toxins as they try to float away.

Burials, on the other hand have many environmental downsides -- partly stemming from the ton of work done on your body just to get you looking good for the big day. Embalming fluids that are used to preserve your stone-dead corpse, a somewhat wasteful practice, contain chemicals like formaldehyde, methanol, phenol -- which can seep out and eventually make their way into the groundwater. An estimated 827,000 gallons of embalming fluid are buried in the US each year.

Take that and add it to the coffin, yet another kinda unnecessary funeral accessory. While there are eco-friendly alternatives, traditional coffins are often built out of rare woods and are sometimes coated with toxic sealants or paints. It's like buying a small car, and immediately burying it -- all to protect your absolutely lifeless body from the elements -- what a racket.

No offense morticians.

Green burials are all the rage these days as people look to forgo the usual embalming fluids and non-biodegradable coffins full of toxic chemicals in favor of more natural "back to the earth" type options instead. And who's the driving force behind this relatively new movement? Environmentally-minded baby boomers.

Back in 1998 the very first "green cemetery" opened in South Carolina, and today nine states offer eco-friendly burial services with more being added all the time. Baby boomers may be leading the trend, but I hope we can all follow suit.