Do-It-Yourself Funerals

Earth Month – Day 6

Of the nearly 2.5 million people who will die in the United States this year, 99 % will travel through a funeral home.

That’s a big problem, according to Joshua Slocum of the Funeral Consumers Alliance (FCA), a political lobbying group based in Burlington, Vermont:

The $11 billion “death-care” industry is taking advantage of bereaved consumers at a time when they are most vulnerable—even going so far as to purposely mislead people into thinking embalming is mandated by law

Embalming is not a law

Embalming is not mandated by law. In some countries they don’t embalm at all.

The goal of the FCA is to change the way Americans deal with the dead. It promotes do-it-yourself funerals that consist of a cardboard box, family, and little else.

Most sacred act

The video below from Vocative speaks with several proponents of home funerals, and follows along with one family as it prepares to lay their mother to rest.

This is DIY Funerals where some people are re-claiming the most sacred act of handling their dead, the death care ritual.

! For more information, check out the National Home Funeral Alliance page.