The Big Exit

What are the alternatives? There are many, and more coming all the time: green burial (a wild and shallow grave); alkaline hydrolysis (good enough for Desmond Tutu); the mushroom solution (a coffin of flesh-eating fungus); composting (it’s not just for coffee grounds); body donation (back to the classroom!), sky burial, sea burial, space burial, and many more.

Just as boomers changed the world as they came into their own, first as teenagers and then as adults, they will re-invent it again on their way out, upending a billion-dollar deathcare industry and all of our social norms around dying, death, funerals, and the disposal of our earthly remains.