fuck thousands for a coffin. or hundreds for an urn. can i legally be burried in butcher paper?

can i donate my body to science and skip burrial all together?

i want my final action to be a big middle finger to the funeral industry picking on people in their weakest moments.

  • swelter_spark@reddthat.com
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    7 days ago

    There are burial grounds that are basically natural parks, where you have to be buried in something biodegradable, like a shroud or pine needle basket, and no grave markers are allowed besides something like a tree or uncut rock. (Burial locations are recorded by gps.) I’d like to be buried in one of these places. Not sure what the cost is, though.

    • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Ironically enough, it sounds expensive because it sounds like someone bought a bunch of land for that purpose to appeal to people who want to be buried naturally. Big money Maker for them.

      • swelter_spark@reddthat.com
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        6 days ago

        Could be. Being buried in one of the old, forgotten cemetaries that dot the woods in some places might work. You might be able to just add an extra body there and no one would ever see or question it.

      • swelter_spark@reddthat.com
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        6 days ago

        Depends on who owns the land, I guess. But they specifically mentioned wanting to be buried in just a wrap or something, which places like this let you do.

        • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          I wonder why they wouldn’t just cremate immediately, which makes me wonder if morgue is waiting for a moment when cremating a non-paying homeless person would be most time-and cost-efficient, horrifying I imagine that they might throw that body in with the next paying customer. You know family members are never allowed to witness a cremation of loved one, even if they’re the ones who paid the fee. So hey, morgue might as well throw in a homeless guy, make it a two-for-one deal. Because surely there are costs associated with heating up the crematorium.

  • OddMinus1@sh.itjust.works
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    6 days ago

    Do a viking funeral. You know, that ceremony where you are sent out in a boat and a fire arrow is fired into the boat so it burns down while floating into the sunset.

    But skip the boat. Have someone chuck you into the ocean and shoot arrows at you until you sink.

  • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
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    6 days ago

    Have nothing of value left when you die and make sure your relatives refuse ownership of anything. Leave it as a problem for the state to deal with.

      • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
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        6 days ago

        Max out all your cards or tell your kids to do so. Buy stuff that is consumable so there are no assets to reclaim.

  • sunbytes@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    There’s a book called “Stiff” by Mary Roach where she looks into all the various ways to (legally) dispose of your body.

    You can donate it to scientific research (my personal preference) and they will use it as a very accurate crash test dummy (usually).

    Things like the glass in car windows and car crumple zones were invented with the help of such donations, and she claims that on average 14 lives are saved by every body donated.

  • But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    No lie, i want a sky burial. Your body is split open and left on a mountainside populated by vultures, after a few days the villagers return and collect your bones, the only thing left. They grind your bones and mix them into crackers, which are then spread around the fields for birds to eat. Your entire body goes back to the birds, i love it. My wife isn’t taking it seriously but I mean it, i want one of those

  • abbotsbury@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    I think you can just not claim the body and the government will bury it in a pauper’s grave or something, but there might be some downsides to rejecting the body entirely.