When a person dies, the body has nothing to contribute to the world anymore unless donated. Embalming a body, digging a giant hole to fill with concrete to create a vault and then placing the person inside of a casket, inside of the vault is pointless and a waste of space and resources. When people die, they should just be placed naked (or in easily compostable clothes) straight into the ground. Then they can naturally decompose and nourish the soil around them. Therefore they still contribute the earth. You can still place a grave marker there and come to pay your respects but it is absolutely unnecessary to have all that extra waste involved.
Edit: I am only speaking about people that choose burial. Not comparing it to cremation.
2nd edit addition: Thank you to the people that actually read the full post and not just the title. And thank you to the numerous people that recommended the "Ask A Mortician" youtube channel. Here's a link to her video "Are dead bodies dangerous?"
https://youtu.be/yw7bsNKsABQ
What are your thoughts on using burial vaults? In Connecticut most cemeteries require a vault or outer burial container to protect the cemetery grounds. Do you feel that they are a worthwhile purchase or a waste of money? If you are pro-vault what vault do you recomend?
Edit: Clarified requirements
Hello,What damage / failures have you seen in cremation vaults when unburying them after a long time, perhaps to add a second URN?
Sorry if it's off topic. It seems impossible to find useful information on plastic cremation vaults such as type of plastic (since different ones decompose at different rates), how long the epoxy glue might last, etc. I'm trying to protect our wooden box of ashes. Strongly leaning into using a Pelican case instead since I can't seem to find useful info. . .
An example hazard-as-custom-move that I'm writing for Stonetop. Thoughts and feedback appreciated!
Sethra’s lair is an old Green Lord tomb, and the mummified Maker is still ensconced in its central vault. The vault is protected by a series of passages that are warded with fae magic: the Hall of Humility, the Hall of Gratitude, and the Hall of Sacrifice. The halls ensure that anyone who approaches the vault does so with proper respect.
...
>When you stand in the antechamber and look upon the archway, tell us whether you carry any iron or steel on your person. If you do, a slab of unworked stone blocks the passage for you and resists any attempts to destroy or bypass it. If you do not, a dark hallway stretches before you and you may enter freely.
...
>When you enter the Hall of Humility, choose 1:
- Tell us of a moment that left you feeling humbled and small before the natural world; you may then proceed to the Hall of Gratitude.
- Tell us of a personal triumph, a moment that fills you with pride and self-satisfaction; you then exit the Hall of Humility and find yourself back in the antechamber.
...
>When you enter the Hall of Gratitude, you see a shifting tableau of ancient peoples living and learning at the feet of tall, magnificent beings. Roll +WIS: on a 10+, you witness someone learning a skill or trade that is nowadays taken for granted—describe the scene, then move on to the Hall of Sacrifice; on a 7-9, you find yourself living one of these ancient lives—describe the task you are performing for the Makers and how you realize that this life isn’t yours, then mark Dazed and move on to the Hall of Sacrifice; on a 6-, the tableau shifts and you find yourself living a life of savagery, brutality, sickness, hunger, and want—tell us a hardship you experience most cruelly, and mark all three debilities. Then tell us how you find your true self again, and move on to Hall of Sacrifice.
...
>When you enter the Hall of Sacrifice, you find yourself alone in a vaulted stone passage, endless in each direction but dimly lit from no discernable source. To reach the end, you know in your heart that you must offer a sacrifice to the lord of this place. If you…
- Offer a work of mortal hands, something this place would never have seen before, erase it from your inventory and roll +INT.
- Offer a powerful memory, cl
I remember the first time I saw the cemetery; my grandfather and I drove by it on the highway as we were on our way to a baseball game. It was hidden for the most part by neglected brush and overgrowth, but some of the faded obelisks and monuments were still visible from the highway. My grandfather, who was always a kind and gentle man suddenly became very rigid and uncomfortable, almost frightened when I noticed the cemetery and asked him about it.
“It’s dangerous there; it’s unhallowed ground.”
“The ground is hollow?” I asked. I was only seven at the time.
“In a sense, but no. Unhallowed is what I said and that means it’s not holy. The land hasn’t been blessed like it aught to. It’s been cursed. It’s a very dangerous place, rapists, murderers, and drug addicts hang out in there. Promise me you will never go there.”
I promised my grandfather that I never would, but over the years I grew more and more curious about the cemetery and when I was in my early teens, I convinced my older brother Todd to drive out there with me to check it out. It took a little bribery, but he agreed to take his morbid little sister across town to check out “some shitty cemetery” in exchange for my silence when he would sneak out to meet up with his girlfriend.
The cemetery was not easy to gain access to, most of it was surrounded by a tall chain link fence and thick brush. When the bypass was built in the 1950’s, it was constructed over the main road that lead to the old cemetery and cut off the only entrance that was approachable by car. Because of this, we had to park at the bottom of a dead end street and take a trail through the woods to the cemetery. The trail had been created by teenagers who used the old cemetery to hang out and drink the booze they lifted from their parents. They had cut a hole in the fence years ago which had grown to become an entire missing section of fence.
My brother and I spent a couple hours wandering among the graves reading the inscriptions and noticed that the dates on the stones seemed to descend chronologically as we went deeper in to the cemetery. We were enthralled by the headstones and their weather-worn lettering. Many of the stones were crumbled and covered in moss while others were nearly absorbed in to trees that had grown up around them.
Nature always finds a way, I thought to myself.
At the back of the cemetery was the oldest of the graves, many dating back to the early 1600’s. There were mausoleums built in to the side of a
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I've been doing some reading and some of the specifications in the Funeral Rule have confused me. I know that it states a cemetery cannot tell me state law requires an outer burial container, but can they require me to purchase one?
I know where they're coming from regarding preservation of the grounds and urn collapse, but we're not having an urn. Afaik, in Illinois we are allowed to request a green burial to fulfill religious requirements that specify remains must contact earth. Return and renewal and all that. So if the only thing going into the grave is a specified amount of dirt/pulverized bone dust like fragments, there's nothing to collapse. My sisters and I are younger and not very established, so we're pretty poor and could really use they money they want for a cremation vault on other memorial expenses. It doesn't seem fair for them to require this of us when what creates the need and the law (the existence of a burial urn that will collapse) doesn't exist. We can't go to another cemetery because my mom's wishes were to be buried in the family plot with her mom. This is a Catholic cemetery and they say it's a requirement of the Archdiocese, but that shouldn't change what is allowed by law, right?
Tl;dr a cemetery (not funeral home) is requiring my family to purchase a vault for cremated remains. Is this legal?
