By Erich Vieth on July 16th, 2008
You can buy a casket at Costco.
You can buy a casket at Costco. I don’t really have any comment about this fact. I was simply surprised to see that you could buy a discount coffin (and other discount accessories for the dead). For less than $1,000, you can get the “In God’s Care Casket.” Not bad, considering that the average price of a casket is $2,000.
I can just imagine someone heading out the door right now, saying “I’m heading off to Costco to buy a casket! They got some great deals out there on funeral accessories.”
I’m not in the market for a casket, mind you. And when I do die, I’d like to be cremated and scattered to the winds. Maybe by then, Costco will have a drive-thru cremation service.
Cremation is much worse for the environment than a casket, especially if you get a biodegradable one.
Richard: Good point. I certainly don’t want to make my last act an extravagant use of fossil fuel to burn my remains.
But I do wonder what uses more fossil fuel: burning one body or making a simple biodegradable box, transporting it to a cemetery, digging a hole and filling it.
The first question is how many tons of carbon does it produce to cremate a body? Well, thanks to Google, I found a risque site that does offer some serious looking numbers.
Ooops. I forgot to post the link to that risque cremation/ecology site: http://www.cremate-me.net/globalwarm.php See also, http://www.cremate-me.net/env.php