We’ve done it again, folks, as if trashing the planet while we’re alive wasn’t enough, we’ve managed to turn death into an environmental catastrophe too, and you’d think maybe—just maybe—we’d take the hint that poisoning the Earth is a bad hobby, but nope, instead we pump corpses full of formaldehyde and seal them in overpriced mahogany boxes like we’re marinating steaks no one’s ever going to eat, and then we bury them in graveyards that take up millions of acres of land that could’ve been community gardens or parks or hell, even a skatepark for kids to bust their knees in, but instead we’re like “nah, remember me in this silk-lined coffin I paid more for than my first car.” An embalmed body can take decades or centuries to break down, and in the meantime it’s just leaking poison into the soil while the funeral industry dumps 800,000 gallons of embalming fluid into the ground every year—enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool except nobody’s diving in, and instead of nourishing the Earth we’re building toxic landfills made out of dead people. And why? Because of some Civil War trend when they had to ship bodies home and thought “hey let’s pickle Uncle Jed for the trip.” It made sense in 1862, now it’s just another scam, big business feeding on our fear of mortality and selling us the illusion of dignity while turning the planet into a giant corpse fridge.
But here’s the truth: we’re just walking, talking sacks of organic matter, and when we die we’re supposed to break down like leaves, feed insects, nourish the soil, keep the cycle going—basic biology, not hippie science—and instead we interrupt the process because we’re scared to face the obvious: that the body is just an empty shell once the lights go out. Nature has way better ideas—mushroom suits that eat your toxins, aquamation that uses water and lye to dissolve you into nutrients, biodegradable shrouds that let you melt back into the dirt. Hell, throw me to the birds, let them fly around and shit me out over a field of flowers, that’s more poetic than locking me in a $10,000 vanity box. At least then I’m giving back, not hogging land like a selfish landlord from beyond the grave. Imagine a community garden where ashes feed wildflowers, walking through fields of color and life knowing that every bloom carries someone’s energy—now that’s reincarnation, not coming back as a butterfly or some celebrity’s bicycle seat, but as energy recycled into the system, eternal and useful instead of trapped in a box.
But no, we cling to tradition like cosmic fools, preserving corpses like trophies, pretending that preserving a shell means preserving dignity, while in reality we’re poisoning the dirt, wasting land, and flipping off our great-grandkids from six feet under like “here you go, enjoy the barren chemical wasteland I left behind, you’re welcome.” People love to say they’d die for their kids, but what about doing something meaningful with your death? Death’s the easy part, everyone does it. Living—and letting your death fuel life—that’s the real legacy. Energy doesn’t die, it transfers, unless we fuck that up too, so maybe it’s time to get over ourselves, stop embalming our vanity, and start honoring the system we’re actually a part of, because life feeds life, and that’s the only tradition worth keeping.
-Written by Steve Caprio
