Disposition Choice Statistics

Choices regarding final disposition — cremation or burial — are thought to be influenced by several factors, including cost, cultural pressure, religious experience, and critical thinking. A comparative statistical study shows interesting correlations between available funds, educational exposure, and disposition choice that suggests that regional and cultural influences may weigh most heavily in decision making. Generally speaking, states with the highest median income and academic levels tend to support cremation at higher levels (the least expensive option), while states with less income and education tend toward more expensive full service funerals with burial.

Conventional vault burial vs natural burial statistics
No state requires collecting data about what is burial along with the body such as a vault or metal casket, or whether the body was embalmed, or at what depth that particular body was buried. All burials fall into the same count, so there are no reliable statistics that demonstrate how many green burials are occurring annually in the US. An effort to voluntarily ask green burials to report their annual numbers to a neutral entity might help ascertain rough numbers but that would not include home burials or cemeteries that are not participating.

Alternative cremation processes
An added twist to calculating the statistics is the introduction of legally defined cremation to include alkaline hydrolysis and human composting. Not all states have legalized these two processes, so those states that do will no doubt provide a clearer statistical analysis at some point. States that have legalized either or both have not to date come up with a reporting process for easy public access, so because they are legally defined as cremation, they are currently lumped together.

Published composting and alkaline hydrolysis data
In those states that published data (available as of January 2025):
Washington composted 112 in 2021 and 280 in 2022
Colorado composted 34 in 2021

Estimates
Total estimates for body composting to date are approximately 550
Fewer than 2000 alkaline hydrolysis dispositions were reported in the US in 2021

Cremation Rates by State from the Cremation Association of North America (CANA)

2019 Median Household income and Highest Academic Levels Statistics from the World Population Review

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By 2022, preferences shifted slightly but the overall pattern is discernible when you search the three categories by tier. Find your state in each to see where it lands overall.

Statistics courtesy of Cremation Association of North America, World Population Review, US Census Bureau