Just about a decade ago, I suddenly had four dead bodies on my hands and had to figure out what to do with the remains. Turns out, that was a far more difficult task than I’d imagined.

With 8-Billion people to bury in the next fifty or so years, body disposal is a huge problem – that no one wants to talk about, let alone think about.

Simply put, no place on earth can consume mass-produced anything, including dead bodies. For example, thanks to mass-production thinking, the groundwater beneath many old cemeteries have become so polluted with embalming fluids, pharmaceutical drugs, cancer drugs, toxic plastics and metals in dead bodies, plus the chemicals that give coffins such fine and fancy finishes - its undrinkable. The soil is so contaminated, even the trees in some of these old cemeteries are struggling to survive.

As awful as it sounds, our dead bodies are too contaminated and polluted to dispose of naturally anymore. If we put 8-Billion of us in the ground, we will be dangerous for those still alive. If we cremate ourselves and throw our ashes to the winds, 40-50-Billion pounds of ashes will be floating in the air – and into the lungs of those still alive. My word, everyone will be breathing in ashes from dead people all over the planet.

We are part of the eco-system here on earth and sending billions of dead bodies into space will slowly deplete the earth and leave it as barren as Mars.

Obviously, I did not find a solution and twelve years later, four urns of ashes still sit on my bookcase. If anyone knows how to return dead bodies to this earth without killing all humankind in the process, please let me know.