GPS Used To Find Graves In Eco-Burial Sites

Narrative Fallacy writes "Relatives and friends will use a satellite navigation device to find graves of loved ones in Australia's eco-burial site on bushland attached to Lismore Memorial Park Cemetery, in New South Wales. Reflecting a worldwide trend towards environmentally friendly burials, the deceased will be buried in biodegradable coffins between gum trees in a protected koala sanctuary. 'It's an ideal way of utilizing land and helping wildlife and vegetation,' said Kris Whitney, Lismore Council coordinator of cemeteries. 'A family can walk around the bushland and pick a site. The body can be oriented in any direction. We promise there will be no internments within five meters. We'll record accurate GPS co-ordinates.' Families visiting graves would be lent a satellite navigation device. This will be Australia's fourth 'natural burial site' with existing sites in Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia."

Comments

Way to go to make me feel like a goldfish

[Cryacin]

For coffins, we'd rather people used woven wicker, plantation pine or recycled cardboard. So let me get this straight? I pay money to be buried in a cardboard box?

Re:Way to go to make me feel like a goldfish

[Fizzl]

I don't get it, why people find their earthly shells so importnt that they should be buried in expensive coffins with huge ceremonies.
It doesn't concern me one bit what happens to my carcass after death.
I recall my father once said he'd like his body just dumped to ocean in a bag after he's dead. Later he switched to wanting to be cremated and the ashes sprinkled in a forest where he used to play as a kid.
Well, he was cremated but my gradparents found it atrocious for him to be buried in common land and after all they got a burial place on "blessed" land for the urn.

Re:Way to go to make me feel like a goldfish

[vidarh]

I don't get why you find it difficult to believe. I have the same attitude.

But I wouldn't send my body to some random stranger for the reason that it might matter to my relatives. I might not care, but if they do, then I'm not going to rob them of the possibility of having a ceremony or whatever they'd like.

If they decide they'd be happy to let you do whatever you have in mind to my dead body, then what do I care?

It's not like I visit the grave sites of m dead relatives - I'd rather think of them in happier terms than as a rotting corpse, so the whole obsession with funerals is really quite distasteful and alien to me.

Re:Way to go to make me feel like a goldfish

[ozmanjusri]

why people find their earthly shells so importnt that they should be buried in expensive coffins with huge ceremonies.

The ceremony's not for the dead. It's for the ones left alive, so they have a sense of closure.

Re:Way to go to make me feel like a goldfish

[Fizzl]

Uhh... Okay. Would you prefer UPS or DHL?

Composting...

[thesupraman]

You seem to miss the point...
Dead bodies break down nicely and help to increase the fertility of the soil. The point is to help the trees grow.

And I would not be surprised if this is being done in an area a touch short of such organic matter..

Of course, if people really cared they may want to consider that GPS is rarely accurate to 5m, its not uncommon to get an EPE of 15-20m in that arts of the world..

Re:Composting...

[Anonymous Coward]

when they start running out of room

Yeah, right. Australia is really "running out of room".

rotting carcass

[timmarhy]

I astounds me that people buy shit like "freshness liners" for coffins, or give a crap about the softness of the coffin pillows.

people, when you die, YOU WILL BE ROTTING MEAT. no different to that cat/dog you buried when you were 12.

Look at it this way, no matter how much of a useless bastard you were in life, if your buried in the ground with trees around you, you'll finally be put to good use.

Re:rotting carcass

[Creepy Crawler]

And your viewpoint is what makes atheists look very bad. Why?

Religion has two major things it accomplishes: a creation myth and a death myth. Many, many people cannot grasp the idea that you will be worm food when you die. They instead seek things like Heaven, enlightenment, or Valhalla as a means to cope with what they do not understand.

As long as these people are peaceful, let them have their beliefs, as it does not hinder what happens. And if somebody is 10% more efficent/successful/happier because of it, I see no reason to burst their bubble.

Re:rotting carcass

[BSAtHome]

Both religious and non religious people are allowed to voice their own thoughts and ideas. Yes, let the religious have their believes, but could you then extend the courtesy to me too when I say that my believe is no believe? I am very comforted by the fact that I will be wormfood when I die. Call it my personal heaven to know that I'll be recycled by nature. I don't need religion to accomplish any comfort for either creation or death.

Fabulous Idea

[bluemetal]

I for one think this is fantastic. It gives one the opportunity to be buried in a way that is helpful to the environment, in a way, peacefully restore yourself to the earth, and at the same time give your family the satisfaction of knowing where you are buried. I for one like the idea that I could put my hand on a nearby tree and say that someone I loved is now a part of that tree. It may sound all fluffy-puffy, but the fact is, burials have always been charged with all sorts of religious and spiritual notions. I believe for a good number of people, this type of burial would satisfy those notions indeed.

Dead bodies in a koala sanctuary?!?

[clickety6]

Don't the fools realise that this is exactly how ghoualas are created, their furry little faces covered in fresh corpse blood as they howl at the moon in their squeaky ghouala voices, dropping out of eucalyptus trees on grieving mourners to gnaw their ears off, using their big fuzzy ghouala ears to locate fresh bodies by the sound of the worms gnawing and their big cute ghouala noses to track the scent of newly planted meat...

Stop them now, before the ghoualas get us all !!!

I want a SPECTACULAR EXTRAVAGANZA!

[spun]

Okay, bear with me here. This is a bit complicated, as it involves bungie cords and dirigibles.

First I'll need a medium sized hydrogen filled aerostat. It doesn't actually have to be a dirigible, any old hydrogen filled aerostat will do. If several thousand dollars worth of fireworks could be hung from the outside, that would be lovely.

Next, I'll need about a thousand feet of bungie cord, a suit made of cotton padding or wick like material, and several gallons of gasoline. Put my corpse in the suit. Attach one end of the bungie cord to the dirigible and the other to my corpse. Securely fasten my corpse to the ground with some sort of quick release mechanism.

Douse my corpse in gasoline. Let the dirigible go until the bungie cord is nice and taut. Light my corpse, and activate the quick release.

If all goes well, my flaming corpse will shoot into the sky and collide with the hydrogen filled, fireworks encased dirigible. Hopefully the resulting explosion will vaporize my body so that not too many steaming gibbets fall back on the amazed crowd.

And that, my friends, is what I would like for my funeral.