system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Would burying the deceased without the use of coffins have a significantly positive effect on Earth's environment?

Do coffins themselves eventually decompose? If so, approximately how long does it take? How much could discontinuing their use reduce the amount of time needed for animal decomposition?
gpt
Yes. To boost profits, the funeral industry has convinced people that they want their loved ones "preserved." This has led to caskets that are built to withstand an apocalypse: layers of concrete, bronze, and plastic, all sealed airtight with a hefty butyl rubber gasket. Ironically, the actual embalming of bodies isn't sufficient to keep them from decaying inside the casket—the egyptians had to remove all of the organs (where decomposition naturally begins) to make that happen. The (toxic) formaldehyde used by a typical funeral parlor only keeps you fresh long enough for the funeral. So your relatives consist of bones sloshing around in flesh-mush inside silly, impregnable 6-foot-deep fortresses.

Using a simpler, faster-decomposing coffin, such as a lightweight construction of wood, cardboard, cloth, or nothing at all, would save resources and avoid leaving bunkers full of human soup buried all over the place.

Source: Alan Weisman, *The World Without Us*, ppg 304-305. Great book.