Green burials replace coffins, crypts
A number of cemeteries in U.S. are moving to natural services for environmental reasons
RHINEBECK, N.Y. — Last goodbyes are said in these woods with wildflowers placed on a shrouded body, or with the beloved wrapped in a favourite childhood blanket. Dirt shovelled back into the graves leaves behind slowly sinking mounds of earth on the forest floor, marked with stones.
Green burials like these at Rhinebeck Cemetery in New York’s Hudson Valley shun coffins, embalming fluid and concrete vaults so everything in the ground decomposes. It’s a movement that goes back more than a decade, but advocates say public attention has increased in recent years, with more cemeteries tweaking practices to accommodate people who want to tread lightly, even in death.
“I love the thing about just being wrapped up and going back to the ground,” said 59-year-old Gina Walker Fox, who purchased a plot near a tulip tree and wild berries she imagines her children picking on graveside visits. “And that seems to be a very easy way on the environment, and an easy way on the human body.”
Advocates of green burials argue it’s best to avoid introducing concrete vaults and potentially toxic embalming fluids into the ground. And unlike cremation, no fossil fuels are required to break down the body.
Of the thousands of cemeteries in the U.S, there are about 125 that offer green burial, said Suzanne Kelly, Rhinebeck Cemetery committee chairwoman and author of Greening Death. Many, like Rhinebeck (128 kilometres north of New York City), create natural burial grounds near the markers of their traditional plots.
In Vermont, a law taking effect July 1 changes the minimum depth for burying bodies from 1.5 metres to one metre — a depth advocates say is conducive to decomposition and safe from animals. Figuring out the best way to prepare shallower graves is just one question cemetery operators have as they seek to accommodate green burials.
“If they’re in a shroud, are people going to understand that, first of all, that body could have an odour to it? There could be body fluid stains on the shroud.
I don’t know,” said Patrick Healy, president of the Vermont Cemetery Association.
.Green burials can save people thousands of dollars in costs for a vault, a plush casket and a granite marker. But they also have nurtured a market for ecologically friendly products such as biodegradable cornstarch urns and wicker caskets.
Mary Lauren Fraser weaves her US$200 urns and US$2,800 caskets in her apartment in western Massachusetts. Costs for the handmade products are in line with what consumers could pay for traditional urns and caskets, though they draw interesting looks when she puts them on display at local farmers markets. “I get all kinds of reactions,” she said.
While state laws vary on the treatment of bodies, green burial practices are legal across the nation, said Kate Kalanick of the Ojai, Calif.based Green Burial Council.
The council, which certifies green practitioners, says unembalmed bodies are safe for a viewing before burial and do not pollute the soil.
For some customers, it’s not about cost or the environment. It’s about what feels right during a difficult time.
After losing a stillborn daughter this year, Becky and Chris Mancuso looked to Vale Cemetery in Schenectady, N.Y., where five generations of her family are buried. Chris Mancuso couldn’t imagine chemically embalming his daughter, and the cemetery’s new natural burial section fit in with his Christian faith that “unto dust shalt thou return.”