Jordi Morillas: "The business of death is one of the most lucrative"

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You could call him the total ecologist and you would not be missing the truth.

For years he was part of the

and, later, he founded the

website , where he continues to work on a daily basis.

This January, his book

(Pámies vitae editorial).

You were working at Fundación Tierra when your interest in natural death was awakened. It was in 2004 when Greenpeace launched a campaign against the use of tropical wood and one of the sectors they attacked was the manufacturers of coffins. In Barcelona they made a staging in the style of the entity against the Barcelona city council that, at that time. as a public service that burials were, he had his own coffin factory. At that same moment, the Tierra Foundation, which offered the possibility of doing internships and end-of-degree projects to environmental science students, received a student who was grieving over the death of a friend. So since the Tierra Foundation was characterized by looking for ecological alternatives,It was valued to know more closely the environmental impact of the funeral process. And this student offered to investigate the matter. So he contacted the town hall funeral home to conduct a study and give them alternatives. This is how the first monograph on environmental analysis of the funeral sector was born later, entitled

, 2005. And you decide to dedicate your future to the issue, what was it that motivated you to do it? I wanted to delve into the need to

the funeral industry and create the website funeralnatural.net. The first thing is to break the fear of the taboo of death. So a good part of the work of a natural funeral is to disclose the process of dying both in its biological and spiritual dimensions. I imagine that writing the book you often thought about what your death will be like, do you have the way and the place chosen? What will his funeral be like? Death is not chosen, it chooses you and, just as we seek friendships by our affinities, death does the same. That is why it is said that we die according to what we have lived. In many cultures, people decide when it is time to die and it is not about euthanasia, but about a call from life to return to the source that each person names or imagines according to their life experience. Personally,I am clear that if I end up with an incurable disease I will not accept any medical treatment. I have written down how I want my farewell party to be for those who value participating in it. If possible, treatment

What pleases me the most is that of excarnation. And if not, I hope that someday composting will be legalized (humusation, recomposition or whatever it is called here when it arrives). In his book he remembers how in Spain an outdated legislation of the Franco regime is still in force in 1974. And he mentions the consequences that The death business is one of the most lucrative, that is why investment funds or insurance companies in Spain are taking it since more than 60% of the population has taken out the death insurance created during the Franco regime. Maintaining the taboo of death is the guarantee that the profit persists. It vindicates the "spiritually earthly" funerals. Respectful towards the environment.Everyone who says goodbye according to their beliefs but it is true that since we are immersed in a country of Christian culture, the secular is still not very accessible. I do not defend it but I disclose the possibilities because, just as four decades ago a civil wedding was an eccentricity and today they are organized in the plenary halls of the town hall, as the same should happen with the farewell rituals. The Barcelona city council has come up with the idea of ​​building funeral homes. Why not make it easier for you to enter public rooms for an hour with a coffin? It also speaks of "embracing pain" and the funeral ceremony as a celebration of life, how long do we have to get there? Are we talking about a new culture of death? Without a doubt, a new culture of death is not implanted in a few decades.The United States recently held a congress on the

by the Green Burial Council's entity to promote natural burials. Well, even though there are green cemeteries in that country, it is still a minority option. In Spain we are a little further away because neither cardboard coffins are easy to market, since the price of the funeral is actually based on the price of the coffin and, if it is made of wood, it can be expensive but made of cardboard ... business would become reasonable and not ultra-lucrative. Direct cremation has been seen as the most aseptic and ecological solution. Are there other options? Without a doubt the best ecological option is composting. We know it from the rubbish and that is why selective collection is promoted. In two or three months the organic waste has turned into fertile and healthy humus. The same with a lifeless human body.Of course, composting (which has nothing to do with decomposition in the soil) is still a recent biotechnology. But in any case, in the United States it is already legalized and offered. From Belgium it is promoted with the name of humusation. Here, we still confuse composting with decomposing.

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