in a time when china is stealing manhole covers for their steel, doesn't it seem... well, wasteful... that we bury so much material during funerals? in the united states alone, every year we bury:

• 30 million board feet of wood for caskets
• 90,272 tons of steel for caskets
• 14,000 tons of steel for vaults
• 2700 tons of copper and brass for caskets
• 1.6 million tons of concrete for vaults