Cemetery and environment

The Cimetière is a place or a human community buries its corpses, even animals (cemetery of cat, dogs). It is one of the places where the matter of the body turns over to the ground. The question remains to some extent taboos, but with 9 billion inhabitants envisaged on planet before 2100, the management of the corpses poses problems which are not negligible any more.

According to the places, the worships, the cultures and the times, the Tomb S, Necropolis S and Cimetière S are or were of the places drowned in nature, sometimes undetectable for those which are unaware of the existence of it so much they are integrated in the landscape. But they can on the contrary consist of very artificial places (catacombs, pyramid, coffins of lead (toxic), sarcophagi) aiming so that the body or the bones does not mix with the ground.

It is with the nineteenth century in Europe that the most artificial cemeteries appeared, often with the image of the cities, with rectilinear and weeded alleys, their rich and poor districts and their ghettos and common graves. Some remained are very raised, like the Cimetière of the Father-Lachaise, others only turfed like the military cemeteries. If the recent crématoriums are often accompanied by a garden of the memory or meditation, the modern cemetery is not drowned any more in nature, it is insulated by a hedge, a wall or a fence.

One however found species of plants exotic, or rare and protected in the cemeteries, until on the tombs. And vis-a-vis the lack of nature downtown, from the point of view of Environmental High-quality (HQE), the idea of a cemetery more " naturel" persist or makes its way in the countries Scandinavian, Protestant, in certain communities mulsulmanes or traditional, without still finding much concretization in impregnated Western Europe of catholic culture.

Environmental cemeteries and problems

The environmental main issues are:

the spread out cemetery and the principle of the perpetual concession consume space and grounds which miss more and more with urban conurbations, even in rural area (China);
the traditional tombs of stone and marble of the rich countries, even the cerceuils have an ecological Empreinte considerable;
the pesticides commonly used to treat the alleys are chronic source of pollution of the environment (water, air and ground);
the corpses which were embaumés with use of Mercurochrome or Biocide S just like contain not or not very biodegradable poisons, which can durably pollute the environment, certain skins of strongly medicalized patients;
the corpses with health hazards, in particular after the epidemics, the wars or catastrophes, make deaths a source of pathogenic microbes, even of long-term radioactivity in the case of after Tchernobyl where tombs with sheet of lead and special concrete have being built to bury the most irradiated décontaminateurs. It is a question which the plans of preparation to a Pandémie grippale, for example related to the Avian flu, must treat.

In France a series of laws and stops started to manage the situation compared to the preoccupations with a hygiene since 1765 (judgments of the Court of the Parliament, of the May 22nd and September 3rd, 1765, and declaration of March 10th, 1776: the still existing cemeteries in the interior of the communes and the hospitals, as soon as possible, will be transferred out of their enclosure)

The law of the 29 Meadow year XI considers all the aspects, for example: situation of the cemetery to more than 35 meters of a puit, height of the enclosing walls, situation in north (to delay the decomposition), prohibition to superimpose it the bodies, in any general information, the reserved place is that of five times that one year, the commune can grant a concession if the cemetery is rather vast. This law also applies in Belgium

The corpse according to the aerobic or anaerobic conditions of its decomposition is more or less important and durable source of microbes and especially of Méthane (), two Gaz with greenhouse effect, methane being 21 times more effective in its contribution to climate warming, in the short and medium term. Certain cemeteries built in floodplain or accidentally flooded can moreover pose serious problems for water.

Alternatives

Various alternatives to the cemetery exist, certain since the Préhistoire. It is:

the Cremation, often presented as an interesting solution because saving place in the cemeteries, but consuming wood or fossil, and polluting fuel (bad filtration of gases, not eliminating for example the mercury from the Plombage S, the Plomb which can be accumulated by the individual during his life, etc);
the traditional embalming with if necessary regrouping of the skins of the ancestors;
the provision of the corpse to Necrophagous S savages (vulture S in general). The corpse can be beforehand cut out as one still does it on the sides of the the Himalayas (where it is difficult to bury the corpses because of the rocky ground and the cold, and where wood often misses), but the vultures are in regression on almost all planet;
the immersion of the corpse (rather currently reserved to the sailors, but which would undoubtedly pose medical problems if it were applied to a great number of people);
in certain traditional cultures (Amerindian of North, Inuits), the old ones feeling death to approach moved away from the community and were going to only die;
more rarely, and in certain communities one ate a part (ex: liver, heart, brain) of died or the enemy killed with the combat while believing to adapt its qualities (in the form of ash if necessary). Thus a spongiform Encéphalopathie with prion was transmitted from generation to generation.

See too

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