Daily Tomorrow-An Eco-blog about green living, health and the environment

Ashes to Ashes…Let Nature Take Its Course with Green Burials

by Gabrielle on July 17th, 2008

I’m not crazy about cemeteries.

Ok, that’s a strange statement. I am guessing most of us (unless you are an anthropologist keen on studying gravestones) wouldn’t choose to spend our Sunday afternoons strolling through vaults and crypts and memorials.

When my time comes, I had always assumed I would be cremated. That felt like the most eco-friendly way to go. That way, I wouldn’t be pumped full of formaldehyde and sealed into a coffin, dumped into a cement vault which were both designed with the sole purpose of NOT letting my body and its nutrients return to the earth as it should.

Think about the costs and natural resources involved in unnaturally preserving a body that (hopefully) no one will ever see. According to the Centre for Natural Burial, a modern funeral will cost your heirs more than a new car and:

A ten-acre swatch of cemetery ground will contain enough coffin wood to construct more than 40 homes, nearly a thousand tons of casket steel and another twenty thousand tons of concrete for vaults. Across North America enough metal is diverted into coffin and vault production each year to build the Golden Gate Bridge, and enough concrete is used to build a two-lane highway from Toronto to Montreal… and back again.

Whoa! But my assumptions around cremation weren’t necessarily correct, either. GreenBurials.org says,

There are air pollution issues caused by cremation, even the fillings in our teeth contribute to the mercury in the atmosphere. Older burners have been replaced by double burners which burn off many pollutants, however cremation releases dioxin, hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide. Many don’t realize, but cremation requires a container. Choosing simple unlined coffins without chipboard and plastics can help reduce pollution.

So what’s a girl to do?

Well, creating an Eternal Reef with your remains is an option, as is a Green, or Natural, Burial.

Eternal Reefs takes the cremated remains or “cremains” of an individual and incorporates them into an environmentally safe cement mixture designed to create artificial reef formations. The memorial reefs are taken to a curing area and then placed in the permitted ocean location selected by the individual, friend or family member.

In a Natural Burial,

The body is prepared for burial without chemical preservatives and is buried in a simple shroud or biodegradable casket that might be made from locally harvested wood, wicker or even recycled paper

And then buried in an area where trees, grasses and wildflowers are planted as living memorials.

Unfortunately, there aren’t many places in the United States which allow natural burials yet. The concept is still new and let’s face it, getting buried the normal way is pretty big business. I used this site to search for a Natural Burial Site near me with no luck.

Hopefully, I’ll have plenty of time to watch my eco-friendly burial options expand.

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POSTED IN: Natural Landscaping, Natural Resources