I love when issues I care about come together. Environmental awareness is very important to me, and end-of-life issues are important too. So imagine my excitement upon learning about the green burial movement. My colleague Lois Kellerman, who was Leader in the Brooklyn and Queens societies, told me about a presentation she went to by Jane Hillhouse who was an early proponent of the green burial movement. Just a month later I attended a presentation by Mark Harris, author of Grave Matters, A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial.

I've only started reading Mark's book, but in his presentation and from other things I've read, I learned that there is a growing number of both individuals and businesses who are trying to create approaches to body burial which take environmental concerns into account.

In Mark's presentation, he showed slides of beautiful cemetaries in which people are buried without being embalmed or placed in a burial vaut. Rather than the attempt to use many resources to prevent a body from decaying and returning to the earth, the expectation with natural burials is that the elements which make up a person's body return to the earth. This is an approach that makes sense to me and I think most, if not all people who have a naturalistic philosophy.

I've always expected that my body would be cremated, as were those of my parents, as they wished. I'm going to have to do some more research and thinking about that, having a new understanding of the energy resources required for cremation, and the potential pollution. I can tell you that one option Mark Harris presented, incorporating a person's ashes into structures that are then lowered into the ocean to create reefs doesn't really appeal to me.

Looking at some of the photographs of memorial stones in green cemeteries made me think of the headstone for Felix Adler, founder of Ethical Culture. He is buried in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, just north of New York City. The first time I went looking for his grave, I wasn't able to find it and the cemetery office was closed. The stone for Felix and Helen Adler is a rock buried in the ground. You can actually see a picture of Adler's headstone.

Thinking about more ecologically sound ways of approaching the disposition of a body after death not only involves changes in thinking about the burial, but also, how family and loved ones might be involved in caring for the body of somoene who has died. I tend to think that greater involvement around death is a good thing, even for children, but there is something in me which resists the thought of having my loved ones bury my body in a simple shroud or having to do that for someone I care for.

I never expected by body to be buried. I'll have to think about that. But reading the facts on the cover of Grave Matters - that the average cost of the standard funeral and bural runs $10,000 and a typical 10 acre swatch of cemetery ground contains enough coffin wood to construct 20 houses; nearly 1,000 tons of casket steel; 20,000 tons of vault concrete and enough toxic embalming fluid to fill a backyard swimming pool, makes me know I have to learn more. I'll be reading Mark Harris' website as one way of learning more.

I've just joined the Board of the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Eastern Mass. and know that I will be learning lots more about funerals and the funeral industry. Some of you may be familiar with Memorial Societies - most have now become Funeral Consumer Alliances and they are great resources for learning about the laws and practices in your community.

As you may know, I've thought a lot about my own memorial service. Now I have a whole new series of ideas I have to think about - what to do with my body after I'm dead. I do like Lee Hays' (Of the Weavers) approach pretty well - he was cremated and his ashes were added to his compost pile.

Have you thought about what you want to have happen to your body when you die?

COMMENTS

Thank you for writing about this. I like the idea of a 'green burial'--I'd love to have an apple tree (or maybe some raspberries) planted above where my body is buried and know that I would be feeding new life.
-- Johnn on 2009-04-12

I heard a story on NPR about a new way to deal with remains. I think it is being used in Norway. The structure of the body is broken down into it's basic components with no toxic consequences.
-- tsheater on 2009-06-22