Up in smoke?

This is one for the dilemma file (or ITanic Vs.).

Cremation or burial?

Despite most in the eco-sphere on this topic surrounding casket design (Cardboard, bamboo, etc), I must confess to having treated it as a bit of a niche thing, despite death, along with taxes, being a bit of a growth industry, along with the global population.

And that is a key consideration. Because if there's more and more of us standing on top of the earth, there's an ever more limited series of places to stick folk under it. And once we start fighting with the guys planting bio-fuel crops, it could get ugly.

Of course it already has to an extent. When I lived in Singapore over a decade ago, large numbers of ancestors were quietly, if rather unceremoniously JCB'd from their eternal slumbers and popped in an urn in a wall if they were lucky.

So pretty much my whole experience, including personally with my Dad, has been cremation.

But in the whole dental filling (mercury) pollution and simple combustion products (heat, gas) scheme of things, is it a good idea?

I'll have to go find out.