no. it's traditional, and dates back for thousands of years. i doubt any scientist would like to openly go against the practice besides, i can't see why it would be. you're not harming the planet. consider that most caskets are made of wood, and wood deteriorates as well as the body, so everything just recylces in to the earth. in fact the nutriets help nourish the earth surrounding the casket. Possiblyt the casket may be made of stone, maybe marble, but that's not polluting either, because you're just putting stone in to the earth form which it came from in the first place

Caskets are actually loaded with phermaldahyde based glues, toxic wood stains & paint that typically contain high amounts of VOC's which will off-gas into the surrounding gas for years to come. Not to mention the high levels of toxins being released from the mass of phermaldahyde pumped into your decomposing body (not to be gross). I'd be curious, but afraid, to hear what the levels of toxins in the grounds near cemeteries really come out to be. Imagine if there were a body of water nearby that could be slowly polluted at low levels? It stands to reason, however, that if one wanted to, one may be able to have a casket built without the use of environmental toxins, but then you still have the regulation required chemicals pumped into the human body being buried. Incineration is the typical alternative, but that releases a large amount of carbon into our atmosphere. One environmentally friendly option I recently heard about it, is donating your body to becoming part of an eternal reef. A company adds you "carbon" to their materials to construct a form that they place in the ocean which acts as reef replacement where reefs have been damaged. Regrettably, most old burial traditions that were environmentally friendly are illegal because current protections and regulations. Some of these old practices are not exactly healthy practices in this day and age. It's our responsibility to be environmental stewards and to consider the reprocussions of our actions. This choice could enrich or inhibit the progress and health of the environment around us for years to come!

I work for a casket company...and they go into vaults, which in turn are sealed and put into the ground..i don't see how the "toxins" would be released unless the vault was opened at some point during or after the burial...but that's rare.