Don't put me in a box in the ground

If death is an unfortunate certainty, a funeral is an expensive one. Complete with the usual wake, ceremony and burial, saying goodbye to a loved one has become an unnecessarily costly farewell. For that and other reasons, I agree with a growing number of Americans who want to get burned, not buried.

The National Funeral Directors Association predicts that 2015 will be the first year that a larger percentage of Americans will choose cremation over burial, 48 to 45 percent. It is the more financially and environmentally practical choice, but also, in my view, a generally cooler way to go out.

A PBS documentary called "Homegoings" found that funerals are at least a $20 billion annual industry in the United States. Every year, about 2.5 million people die in our country and the number of funerals hovers around that mark. But until recently, a vast majority were going 6 feet under fully intact.

NFDA cremation statistics date to 1960, when the percentage of dead who were cremated was just 3.56 percent. Twenty years later, it was still just under 10 percent. Five years ago, the rate exceeded 40 percent for the first time. And by 2030, the NFDA estimates that cremation will skyrocket past burials to a rate of about 3 to 1. The days of decay are going away, and rightfully so.

Cost estimates for the average funeral, including burial, range from $6,000 to more than $10,000, depending on amenities like vaults or headstones. On the other hand, cremationresource.org says that the average cremation costs about $1,100, though without a funeral. Still, I would prefer to leave this world with as few fiscal burdens as possible for my family.

The problem of land shortage for burials is another reason to prefer ashes. In late 2014, Metro US, a free daily newspaper in New York City, Philadelphia and Boston, reported on the problem of international land shortages. The story said that NYC cemeteries are pushing for more cremation or above-ground burials because some, like Green-Wood cemetery in Brooklyn, could be out of room in as little as 10 years. Also, the City of London cemetery is digging up old remains to rebury deeper, and in Beijing, the government has doubled its subsidies to encourage sea burials. An increasing world population paired with an increasing migration to urban zones means less space for the dearly departed.

Finally, cremation seems to me to be the most appropriate "thank you" to mother Earth. To dust we shall return, so I'd like my dust to be sprinkled somewhere so that new life may spring from it. Don't put me in the ground and don't put me in an urn so that I can get knocked over during a party like something out of a bad frat movie.

I understand the right to customize the handling of your remains however you like, but practicality leads me to prefer cremation, and many others should, too. I won't care much when I'm dead, but if I'm scattered to the wind, at least I won't be able to turn over in my grave.

Christopher Leelum, a student at Stony Brook University, is an intern with Newsday and amNewYork.