To help Earth’s future, people are getting buried like it’s 1860

Read the full story in the Washington Post.

Simpler, greener burialswere the American standard until the Civil War, when many soldiers were embalmed so their bodies could be returned home. President Abraham Lincoln’s embalming then made the procedure fashionable, and over the next century, embalming, luxurious caskets and vault liners became standard.

Today, 57 percent of people in the United States choose cremation, followed by 37 percent who opt for a traditional burial, according to the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA). But these have environmental drawbacks.