The practice of burying our dead in the ground has been traced back over 100,000 years ago. For the vast majority of that history, those burials have been green. In fact, the practice of embalming, one of the most environmentally harmful aspects of modern American burial, didn’t begin until the Civil War — in an effort to preserve the bodies of soldiers killed far from home so they could be returned to their families intact.

Green burial is now making a comeback. In a recent AARP poll, 45% of respondents said they would choose green burial over modern burial or cremation if given the choice. If you’ve worried about the impact of human burials on the environment, you may want to consider the solution offered by two Italian designers; an all-natural burial pod that uses human remains as food for a tree.