Green funerals an earthy alternative

By Linda Jo Scott
Sun contributor
While our country is focused on end-of-life issues, perhaps it is a good time to look at burial practices, as well. Are you aware that an ordinary funeral costs between $6,000 and $10,000? And that with steel caskets and concrete vaults, we aren’t returning our bodies to our mother earth for thousands of years?

According to Mary Woodsen, Vice President of the Pre-Posthumous Society of Ithaca, New York and freelance science writer, “Each year in the U.S., we bury 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid, which includes formaldehyde; 180,544,000 pounds of steel, in caskets; 5,400,000 pounds of copper and bronze, in caskets; 30 million board feet of hardwoods, including tropical woods, in caskets; 3,272,000,000 pounds of reinforced concrete in vaults; 28,000,000 pounds of steel in vaults.
In an effort to eliminate all of this waste, a movement for “green funerals” is already strong in Britain and is beginning to catch on in this country. There are already over 200 “green” or “woodland” cemeteries in England and just under 100 in this country. In these wooded areas, people can be buried in burial shrouds made of natural fibers, or cardboard or wood coffins, provided the wood comes from “sustainable forests.” Or they can be cremated and their ashes can be placed in these places of beauty.
Instead of conventional gravestones, the family can plant indigenous wildflowers or a tree to mark the burial spot–or simply place a natural, uncut rock as a marker. If the family wishes, it can physically carry the body to the site, dig the grave, and lovingly return the loved one to the earth.
Dr. Billy Campbell of Westminster, South Carolina, has established Ramsay Creek Preserve, a 32-acre “green” or “woodland” cemetery. Though religion is not a necessary element at Ramsay Creek, Dr. Campbell has moved an old chapel onto the grounds to be restored for use by people of all faiths. Archives will be kept in the chapel of the life histories of all who are buried at Ramsay Creek.
Woodland cemeteries also provide an answer to space problems, for they exist both as natural places of beauty and as burial sites.
Are there “green cemeteries” in Michigan? According to Suzanne Jolicoeur, Cemetery Commissioner of the State of Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Growth, “there are cemeteries here which do not require vaults, and if the body is disposed of within 48 hours, no embalming is required.” Jolicoeur does not know of any cemetery in Michigan, however, which would accept a biodegradable casket without a vault. “You could get sinkholes and people could fall and injure themselves.”
“People can bury on their own property,” says Charlotte mortician, Charles L. Green, Green. “The health department says it’s fine, so long as the death is recorded. It’s like with farm animals; you need to bury them deep. Of course it could be a problem if the land changes hands. The new people might not want people to come around to visit the site.”
A person who wants a “green funeral” would need to inform family members in advance. An actual site could be chosen, and the family could create a ceremony in total harmony with nature and the cycle of life.
See “Mother Earth News,” April/May 2003; “Caring for the Dead: Your Final Act of Love” by Lisa Carlson, “Guidebook for Creating Home Funerals” by Jerri Lyons; “Dealing Creatively with Death, A Manual of Death Education and Simple Burial” by Ernest Morgan or go to web sites www.crossing.net; www.finalpassages.org; or www.memorialecosystems.com for more information.