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Do you make green choices in life? If so, then honor those green leanings in death with burial in a green cemetery where the natural decomposition of the body deep in the soil is allowed to nurture the native meadows and woodlands growing above. Natural cemeteries win green points in two ways: they eschew the tenets of traditional cemeteries that use cement vaults, elaborate metal and hardwood caskets, and embalming, thereby reducing the amount of resources that get buried with the body. They also protect land from development, leaving it in its natural state for wildlife and native plants to flourish…and for the living to enjoy.

How to be buried in a green cemetery

Green cemeteries don't look like traditional cemeteries with green manicured lawns and headstones lined up in neat order. Instead, they look more like nature preserves with trees, grasses, wildflowers, and shrubs growing where the seeds fall. Walking paths lead visitors to burial areas, and inconspicuous engraved stones mark individual burial sites.

Each cemetery has its own set of rules but, in general, green cemeteries avoid resource-intensive burials. The focus is on simple methods that won’t interfere with the body’s natural decomposition or surrounding ecosystems.

• Bodies cannot be preserved with embalming fluids, which contain formaldehyde, a carcinogenic substance. Bodies can be held in refrigeration at the hospital or at a funeral home until burial.
• Excavation of the burial site is usually by hand to minimize impacts on the surrounding land, and to protect native plant diversity.
• Cement vaults or grave liners are not permitted. These conventions of traditional cemeteries are used to prevent the ground from caving in after decomposition. Instead, at a green cemetery, the earth is mounded on top of the grave site and the mound eventually disappears as the earth settles. Native grasses, flowers, trees, or shrubs may be planted on the mound to quickly rehabilitate the site.
• Caskets or burial shrouds must be made of biodegradable materials. No metal or elaborate hardwood caskets are allowed.
• Grave markers are simple engraved stones indigenous to the area. Sometimes a native tree or shrub is planted instead. To ensure family members will always be able to find a grave after nature rehabilitates the disturbed soil, burial sites are typically marked on a survey map. Some cemeteries insert metal nails at a site so a metal detector can aid in searching. Others use GPS to locate sites.

Find it! Green cemeteries

Because they're relatively novel in North America, only a handful of green cemeteries currently exist stateside. However, their numbers are expected to rise, following the lead of Great Britain, which boasts about 200 such cemeteries. In a survey by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), 89 percent of its magazine readers favored a “green burial” over a traditional burial or cremation. If you can’t find a green cemetery near you, check with your local cemetery. Traditional cemeteries with additional undeveloped land may be willing to open that land to green burials if requests increase. To find a green cemetery, see these websites:

• Green Burial Council lists cemeteries that have been approved to meet the Council’s standards.
• The Green Funeral Site lists green cemeteries by state.
• The Centre for Natural Burial provides listings of green cemeteries in the US, Canada, the UK, and other countries.

Being buried in a green cemetery helps you go green because…

• They do not accept metal or hardwood caskets, cement vaults, or headstones, significantly reducing the earth’s resources that get buried with each body.
• Bodies are not embalmed with formaldehyde, which protects groundwater from toxins and protects the health of funeral employees.
• Green cemeteries work to preserve natural habitat and wilderness areas instead of altering and manicuring landscapes with non-native grasses that use massive amounts of water and chemical fertilizers.

Burying less

A traditional cemetery buries approximately 1,000 bodies per acre. This high density means that a typical 10-acre cemetery contains enough casket wood to build more than 40,000 homes, more than 900 tons of casket steel, 20,000 tons of concrete vaults, and enough embalming fluid to fill a small backyard swimming pool.[1] Wooden caskets are typically made from hardwoods, and few are made from Forest Stewardship Certified (FSC) wood, which guarantees the wood was harvested from sustainably managed forests. Forest ecosystems are critical: they filter air, stabilize climate by absorbing CO₂, and provide habitat for 90 percent of all land-dwelling plant and animals species.

The use of steel caskets, and steel and copper reinforced vaults are also detrimental to the environment as all metals are mined from the earth and are nonrenewable resources. The extraction and processing of these resources contributes to the 1 to 2 billion tons of mine waste that accumulate annually, and has polluted more than 3,400 miles of streams and more than 440,000 acres of land.[2] To compound the problem, burying all that steel diverts 90,000 tons from the recycling stream each year.[3]

In contrast, a green cemetery holds 70 to 90 percent fewer bodies per acre, and each is buried in a cloth shroud or in a simple biodegradable casket made of pine or other recycled materials.[4] This low density allows the cemetery to restrict burials on ecologically sensitive areas. Drainage spots, streams, dense wooded areas, and areas needing restoration are left undisturbed.

Protecting health

Each year traditional burials pump more than 830,000 gallons of embalming fluid into the deceased in an attempt to preserve these bodies, a practice not required by law.[5] During the embalming process, blood and other bodily fluids are replaced with formaldehyde and other chemicals. The fluids, as well as some formaldehyde, are released, untreated, into the sewer system. As the buried body decays, bodily fluids and formaldehyde leak from the caskets and vaults, potentially contaminating groundwater. The good news is that formaldehyde has a half-life of two to 20 days in water, and formaldehyde has only been found in small amounts near the few cemeteries tested in Canada.[6]

The bigger threat from formaldehyde is to funeral workers. In 2004, the International Agency for Research on Cancer released information that formaldehyde causes nasopharyngeal cancer and may cause leukemia, putting embalmers at risk. Research is ongoing at the National Cancer Institute due to reports that funeral workers have excess malignancies of the lymphatic and central nervous systems.

Conserving land

Land is being bought for residential and commercial development almost three times faster than population growth.[7] Cemeteries are part of that mix, requiring the addition of two square miles for new grave space each year.[8] Farmland and natural areas are both under pressure. Every minute the US loses 2 acres of agricultural land to development, which is about two and one-half football fields.[9]

Green cemeteries provide a unique opportunity to mix commercial use and land conservation. The Green Burial Council has developed standards for three types of green cemeteries: Conservation Burial Grounds are protected by conservation easements and use principles of restoration ecology to rescue locally rare plants. Natural Burial Grounds also engage in restoration planning and land stewardship, but use a restrictive covenant to ensure that they will only be operated as green cemeteries. Hybrid Burial Grounds are cemeteries that accommodate both traditional burial practices and green burial without vaults, and may also include sustainable landscape design.

Glossary

• formaldehyde: A flammable reactive gas belonging to the VOC (volatile organic compound) family of chemicals. Ingestion of the chemical can cause severe physical reactions, including coma, internal bleeding, and death.

External Links

• MSNBC - Green Graves Give Back to Nature
• AARP.org - Green Graveyards: A Natural Way To Go
• Mail Online - Why Dad’s Eco-Funeral Went Horribly Wrong
• Groovy Green - Groovy Video: GreenSprings Natural Cemetery: Watch a video report of one green cemetery located in New York.