University of Minnesota Department of Medicine and Minnesota Department of Health: The Cumulative Effects of Death and Transition in Minnesota from 2013 to 2018
The Minnesota Department of Health provided data on 244,866 deaths in Minnesota from the years of 2013-2018. Due to the large number of deaths over the last six years in Minnesota, it is possible that damage has been done to the environment and human health because of irresponsible transition methods. My project focused on the cumulative environmental impact from the six years of burial and cremation in Minnesota. It was found that cremation is more toxic because it vaporizes, on average, 4.25 mg of mercury and 0.735 µg of PCDD/Fs per body cremated (1,13). On the other hand, burial releases a large amount of CO2, as the large, cement vaults that caskets are placed in leave behind a large carbon footprint. The average CO2 per burial in a vault was 3.19 metric tons of CO2 per body buried (2,3,4,6).