Kit Roberts
People are dying more than ever, but in a rather ominous turn of events, we are running out of places to bury them.
It's not the first time in history that we have faced this problem. The incredible ossuaries you see in parts of Europe, churches and monasteries decorated with human bones, are actually an example of this as the chapels were used to store human remains in a consecrated place.
However, the UK is now facing a major crisis with cemeteries becoming physically full up. It's not like we can just expand them either, as once the land is full, that's it.
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So what exactly are the solutions which might help us out of this macabre situation?
Well one obvious idea is to change the way that we dispose of our dead, and how we commemorate them. Cremation is a popular way of safely disposing of a corpse, and is currently the UK's most popular.
This does still present some problems. It results in a lot of carbon dioxide emissions. There's even the factor that people's dental fillings might release mercury into the air. Yikes.
There are newer and more inventive ways that people are doing this. One is to bury someone in a capsule underneath a tree so that as their body decays and the sapling will benefit from the nutrients. This would mean that a cemetery would effectively be reforesting an area.
Another is a similar idea but where someone is essentially composted. The body is placed in a box made of fungus mycelium and bacteria. These accelerate the process of the body being broken down until nothing remains. While this is a very eco friendly idea, it does happen effectively in a warehouse, which some people might find difficult to deal with.
This leads us to the issue of using graves as commemoration. A lot of people understandably like to have somewhere to visit and be with their loved one, maybe put down flowers or keepsakes and reflect.
While it has been suggested that older graves might be reused, this ultimately only postpones the problem, and some people might not like the idea of their deceased loved one having a 'roommate' in the afterlife.
One alternative would be to find a different way to commemorate someone. This could be with a bench in their favourite place, or in the case of some people, a plaque in their usual spot in their local pub.
It doesn't have to be those specifically, but something personal.