Sludge Watch ==> Green Burials - Dying without Killing the Earth

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

Since dying is as inevitable as defecation...I thought I'd post this 
heartening development:
Green Burials.

Nature as sacred resting place.

..............................................................


Dying without killing the Earth
By Cynthia Hubert

McClatchy Newspapers




BRYAN PATRICK / MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

Antonio Benitez waters the grave site of a "green" burial, which uses 
totally biodegradable materials (no embalming fluid, no fancy caskets, no 
grave markers) to put people to final rest at Forever Fernwood Natural 
Burial Ground in Marin County, Calif.

Related

Reefs provide a memorial underwater
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Hannah Wit once told her longtime boyfriend what should 
happen to her body after her death.

No toxic embalming fluid for preservation, she insisted. No fancy metal 
casket lined in satin. No concrete vault around her grave. No elaborate 
marker. Wit just wanted to disappear.

"I want to be eaten by the worms," she said.

"You can't do that," Doug Sovern remembers telling Wit.

After she died this year at age 42, Sovern, a radio reporter who lives in 
Oakland, Calif., did some research and was surprised to find he could honor 
Wit's unusual wish.

He learned he could commission a "green" burial, leaving behind nothing more 
than biodegradable compost to fuel plant life.

Though they are popular in the United Kingdom and other countries, green 
burials are just beginning to attract attention in the United States.

For centuries, a variety of cultures have chosen to bury their dead in 
shrouds or wooden boxes, without first infusing bodies with chemicals. But 
the green burial movement has taken the practice to a new level. Some 
cemeteries forbid the use of formaldehyde, concrete, metal or any other 
material not completely biodegradable.

In these burial grounds, graves are marked only with a plant or a stone 
natural to the area. Visitors use global- positioning equipment to find 
resting places of their loved ones.

Only five cemeteries in the United States are certified as strictly green by 
a council that oversees their activities. Others, including the one in Marin 
County, Calif., where Wit is buried, have special sections set aside for 
green burials. Most other cemeteries will forgo chemical preservatives or 
metal caskets if families request it, but require concrete vaults to 
stabilize the ground where bodies are buried.

Advocates argue that a green approach to burial is environmentally friendly, 
spiritually uplifting and often less costly than the conventional American 
way of laying people to rest.

Some conservation groups see green burials as a way to preserve public land 
that otherwise might be devoured by development.


"Before the 'better dying through chemistry' era was born, this was the way 
most of humanity cared for its dead," said Joe Sehee, founder and executive 
director of the Green Burial Council, a nonprofit group leading the charge 
for biodegradable burials. "It's a way to honor the dead and heal the living 
in an environmentally responsible manner."

Sehee's group believes metal caskets and reinforced concrete vaults are 
wasteful and unnecessary, and that formaldehyde used for embalming 
contributes to underground water pollution. The U.S. Environmental 
Protection Agency considers formaldehyde toxic to humans and other species, 
but the agency has no data on its potential for polluting water.

Cremations, Sehee noted, send potentially toxic mercury and other chemicals 
into the air from the burning of dental fillings. The EPA estimates that 
crematoriums emit about 320 pounds of mercury each year, a tiny share of the 
tons of the chemical pumped into the atmosphere by other industrial sources.

Conventional funeral directors challenge the notion that their methods are 
environmentally damaging. Funeral homes and cemeteries are required to abide 
by environmental laws, they point out. Moreover, they argue, many people 
want loved ones embalmed so that they are suitable for viewing before 
burial, and wish to honor them with fancy caskets and gravestones.

"I look at our cemetery, and to me it's a peaceful place where people can 
visit a grave site, bring flowers, have picnics," said Shaun Myers, a Utah 
funeral director and member of the National Funeral Directors Association's 
executive board. "To me it's a thing of beauty, and I don't see any 
documentation that supports the claim that cemeteries are places of 
contamination."

Most funeral directors are happy to conduct "direct burials," without 
embalming or elaborate caskets, if families request them, Myers said.

"The funeral directors that I know simply want to serve the family and the 
family's desires," he said.

Funeral homes frequently get requests for burial without embalming, said 
funeral director Tom Maloney of Lombard & Co. in Sacramento, Calif. 
Biodegradable caskets are an option. But most cemeteries require concrete 
vaults to prevent graves from settling and sinking. Maloney said he doesn't 
know of any cemeteries with areas dedicated to green burials.

"Ecoburials" have been slow to take off in the United States, Sehee said, in 
part because they pose an economic threat to funeral homes and cemeteries.

Green burials can be cheaper. The average cost of a traditional funeral is 
about $7,000, not including cemetery fees, which can add thousands of 
dollars to the bill. Green burials can be done for less than half that 
amount, advocates say.

"Still, we think funeral homes can make just as much money being more 
ethical and environmentally sustainable," Sehee said. "The smarter providers 
realize that this is where the market is going."

Sehee's group certifies and oversees activities of the nation's green burial 
grounds and reviews green services offered by conventional funeral homes and 
cemeteries.

Meanwhile, the council is working with conservation groups such as the 
Commonweal Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land to establish natural 
burial sites on property protected from future development.

"Burying someone in a certain place creates a feeling of sacredness, a 
connection to that land," said Ernest Cook, senior vice president of the 
Trust for Public Land. "As people choose green burial, we have the 
opportunity to communicate to them something about the place they are 
saving. It's a way for people to contribute to the conservation effort."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003944160_greenburials12.html