Forest of Memories

By Clare Paterson, It’s your funeral (blog)

Very few people make plans for their own funerals despite most of them thinking it would be a good idea, according to recently published research. My grandmother pre-paid her funeral as a matter of course. She knew what she’d be getting, that it would be paid for and that it would be done according to her wishes. Today that’s not the fashion although curiously there is now a massive consumer market and a baffling array of choices not available in her day. Some people do want to choose for themselves rather than leaving a myriad decisions about cremation, burial, rockets, urns, natural burial grounds, church, chipboard, wood and the rest to the bereaved.

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Michael d’Estries - ecorazzi

While Anna Nicole Smith took the traditional road of embalming and a hardwood casket, Rachel McAdams is saying no to the glamour and expense of modern burial and opting to go green. (more…)

Stuff.co.nz

A Marlborough man plans to give deceased nature-lovers the chance to permanently sleep with fish. Clive Barker, of the Marlborough Reef Trust, is seeking resource consent to build New Zealand’s first eco-burial reef.

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Lori Valigra, National Geographic News

A burial in outer space seems a fitting farewell for James Doohan, the actor who played the beloved engineer “Scotty” on Star Trek. To honor his final wishes, some of Doohan’s ashes will be shot into space this fall, along with a CD of tributes from fans and loved ones.

Celebrities aren’t the only ones considering alternatives to a conventional funeral. More people in the U.S. are rejecting traditional burials as too costly and ecologically unsound. Instead they are chosing environmentally friendly, and often highly personalized, goodbyes.

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Eco-friendly funerals break new ground

By Francesca Lyman, MSNBC.com

For some, there’s nothing more ghastly than the idea of having their mortal remains embalmed, sealed in a metal and plastic casket and buried in a cement vault. They’d prefer to be buried “au naturel.” So some companies are thinking outside of the box and offering Earth-friendly burials amid the earth, trees and sea.

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