Burials & Grave Care

How to dispose of the body

By Jay Williams

Years ago when a friend or loved one passed away there would be one question, cremation or burial.

Well not anymore, there are many things to consider with the list of new and unique ways to honour your friends and loved ones.

Living in a world where there is so much talk about carbon emissions and doing things 'greener', most of us wouldn't even consider the carbon impact a body in a casket or vase in the ground would have on the environment. 

Let's face it, who would be thinking about these types of things in the first place, a loved one has just passed away, right?

Environmentally friendly and ecologically sustainable burials or 'Upright Burials' is a new way to send your loved ones into the next life in a greener way.

Unlike traditional burials, were the body in placed in the ground horizontally, the body is placed in a vertical position in a biodegradable body bag using a far simpler and safer approach to burial that removes the OH&S issues and labour costs associated with a traditional burial, and, all the environmental costs associated with preparing all the accoutrement for the burial.

For something a little different you can now send your friend or loved ones into space, that's right SPACE!

Following cremation, your loved one's ashes will travel into space in a specially designed memorial space flight urn. You can choose to have the ashes scattered across the heavens, or you have the cremated remains of your loved one returned safely to Earth.

Whichever option you choose, the space flight urn is given to you as a lasting memorial of your loved one's journey into space. Not the least costly by a long shot.

Last, but not least, and definitely one of the more unique ways to honor your loved ones is to turn them into a diamond.

A company called LifeGem start by taking the cremated ashes and heating them to 3,000�C. This burns off the impurities and converts the carbon to graphite. At this point the pile of Graphite formerly known as Mum is shipped off to a lab in Russia or Germany. Then the lab people pack the graphite around a tiny piece of diamond which kick starts the process, and subject it to high temperature and extreme pressure - 1,000,000 psi or around 80,000 times that of the atmosphere - for seven to 10 days.

The result is a beautiful blue gem-quality diamond which you can then mount on a piece of jewelry or have embedded in your front tooth - I'm kidding.

On a side note for more traditional burials there are services available around the world that provide people that don't have the time, find it too hard to manage or live too far away from their buried loved ones a facility that looks after a grave site for you.

Grave care services can cater for every individual need, weeding, cleaning polishing the tombstone and fresh flowers for special anniversaries.

Most of these services offer a number of packages from tending the site once a year or up to twelve times a year.

Additional services offer seasonal plantings such as bulbs and bedding plants, where cemetery's allow.

So there you have it a few new and unique ways to send your loved ones off into the unknown and grave care for people that want to maintain the look of a grave site.