Closing the loop.

• Position: Burials - Emissions control for crematoriums - Brief article

Residents of several U.S. cities have successfully fought plans to build new crematoriums, and critics have called for stricter emissions controls on them. Other proposals for reducing emissions include removing mercury fillings from corpses before cremation and using liquid nitrogen to reduce bodies to dust. Adelaide's Centennial Park cemetery plants trees to offset the site's emissions, and Koekisha, a major funeral home operator in Osaka, Japan, uses dry ice and a cold insulator to reduce carbon emissions from bodies.

Eco-friendly burials, popular in the United Kingdom for years, are catching on elsewhere. Low-impact offerings include natural-fiber shrouds, fair-trade bamboo caskets lined with unbleached cotton, and the $5,000 Ecopod, a biodegradable coffin made from...