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Certain types of burial allow the body to potentially contaminate nearby soil. Others can leave behind a void that can either collapse and disrupt nearby graves, or in some cases lift the body back to the surface in heavy rain. (Extremely uncommon now because essentially nowhere allows you to use those methods)
Funeral pyres or other forms of open air cremation are generally not legal due to concerns of fire spreading.
Whole body water burial is probably not legal in a body of fresh water in the US due mostly to the complexity of figuring out which law applies to that circumstance in any of the bodies of water that could be used that wouldn't be grossly undersized and unsanitary. (Basically that means the Great lakes, which are the only ones with the depth and size sufficient, but are shared between multiple states and also Canada. Usually the rule is that if it's not forbidden it's permitted, but body disposal is more complicated)
I probably should have said "safely" rather than just "sanitary", I was thinking about water burials and ground water contamination when I said that.
And also just like... Leaving the body out in a public area.
As long as you're not putting people in danger, and you're not disrespecting the deceased, what would be illegal?
Most states have laws indicating you must involve a funeral director to ensure the.body is disposed of properly, and then define the licensure requirements for a funeral director to include the types of disposal they can oversee.
It means they don't need to define every type of burial you're not allowed to do, and there should be a qualified professional to ensure whatever you're doing is okay before you do it.
The libertarian impulse to say that if it doesn't hurt anyone it should be legal butts into the reality that every time we have that policy for body disposal things tend to go funny in unexpected ways.
No, I understand the need for laws around it, for people's safety.
But the restrictions seem excessive, since it seems likely that there are only a few options for disposal that a funeral director can be licensed to do, rather than training them on what makes something un/safe and letting them use their judgement.
And strange that they basically made laws that say you must use this private industry. If you're going to legislate that a particular service must be used, then that service should be a public service. But now we're getting off topic lol.
The laws are usually amongst the oldest ones in a state and only revised pretty infrequently if someone has a particular issue. The dead person constituency is pretty weak, so the matter doesn't get a lot of attention. Basically once they wrote down that embalming chemicals can't be explosive (to prevent the coffin torpedo and general miguided insanity) there hasn't been much need to update them.
In a lot of ways the funeral industry is better than others, regulation wise. You don't need to do business with anyone. You're dead. It's illegal to act as a funeral director without a license, and the regulations are entirely imposed in the director. If you've got a body to get rid of, you don't have to pay a funeral director. The government will take care of it pretty quickly if no one else will.
We've got similar restrictions on barbers. Except for the government giving you a haircut if no one else will. They don't particularly care if you're hairy.
I do agree though, a lot more basic functions of society should be fundamentally provided by the public. "Doctors" would have been a better, but less funny, example above.
That's why you set up your OWN funeral pyre! Got a terminal cancer diagnosis, looking to go out on your own terms?
I mean, sure, it's illegal as Hell. But who are they going to prosecute? Are they going to put your ashes on trial?