What a remarkable innovation, astoundingly high-degree green-tech, it's simple, natural, it's enviro-friendly and economical for the bereaved, and makes for a right nice parkland too. And gee, it only took us a hundred years to figure it out: People, it turns out, are bio-degradeable ...

"The key difference with natural burial is using the trees and shrubs as part of the memorial," he added. "But the actual process of burying in a natural way is both how it has been done since the beginning of time up until 100 years ago, and also still done in a lot of rural areas ... and continues to be done in most of the world."
[ No casket required for natural burial proposal ]

When you think of it, really, soaking our corpses in millions of litres of toxic chemicals, soaking our bereaved for six grand a pop and then sealing it all up in a hand-crafted boxes then permanently (and expensively) reserving all groundspace above the resulting groundwater-tainting muck for all eternity, well, y'know, it makes you wonder how we got sucked into the whole undertaker biz in the first place, don't it.

And now it turns out that the genius of this revelation is spreading, natural burial now accounts for nearly one fifth of the burials in the UK, and if NBC pres Mike Salisbury gets his way, the first such groundbreaking spot in Canada will soon grace our own Paisley environs:

Mike Salisbury -- President and Founder of the Natural Burial Co-Operative -- came to Arran-Elderslie Council yesterday and presented a plan to set up Canada's first natural burial ground along a piece of property on Bruce Road 11 east of Paisley.

Natural burial is to be buried without being embalmed and with little material in burial process. Salisbury says the easiest way of describing natural burial is to think of your funeral as a conservation tool. He says the proposed site has an excellent opportunity to be contiguous for natural habitat and natural environment along the Saugeen River.

Salisbury says an Official Plan Amendment is required to change the zoning from agricultural to a designation allowing for the proposed use.

[ Natural Burial coming to Arran Elderslie ]

death as a conservation tool ... hmmm ... ok, I've changed my mind: Instead of my previous instructions to just leave it by the side of the road somewhere, I'll now consent to having my remnants wrapped up in a cozy bamboo tarp and left down where this earthenly shell can happily push up the healthy and happier wild daisies, where the deer and the jackalopes play. Seems a win-win to me.

Bio-degradeable ... who'd-a thunk it.