This was sent in by a ScaryPlace reader in Ireland.
A firm of undertakers in Ireland is hiring out hardwood coffins to meet growing demands to cut funeral costs and spare precious timber.
Rom Massey & Sons of Dublin said it had begun offering a service in which an inexpensive chipboard coffin is inserted in a hardwood display casket for the funeral. Afterwards the body and the disposable casket are cremated.
"People are very opposed to burning precious hardwoods," said Keith Massey, a spokesman for the company. "It's like burning money," he added.
The practice already exists in the United States, but is a first for Ireland where the Roman Catholic church has allowed cremation only since the 1970s, Massey said. Cremation is chosen for just five percent of funerals in Ireland, but is slowly being accepted, Massey said.
Rom Massey & Sons has been an innovator in Irish undertaking,
introducing cardboard coffins for people who demanded "to be buried in a cardboard
box," Massey said.
Interesting idea... not very elegant, but by then I doubt I'll care...
I wonder if Rent-A-Center will carry them?