Guelph landscape architect proposes an ecologically sound `green’ cemetery
By Thana Dharmarajah, Guelph Mercury
Picture a cemetery where the grass and wildflowers are unkempt. Imagine headstones replaced by tree plantings or inscribed rocks. A Guelph landscape architect is proposing to launch a “green” cemetery at a time when people beginning to think outside the box for ways to bury their loved ones.
“People are not spiritually satisfied with what is available.” Mike Salisbury said. “They look at the way we treat our loved ones in death as cold and business-like.”
The ‘woodland cemetery’ also known as an eco-cemetery or green graveyard is a burial ground where the body is returned to nature in a biodegradable casket, with a tree planted over or near the grave, Salisbury said. The resulting forest establishes a living memorial and forms a protected wildlife ito preserve.
“You are returned in a way you can be more charitable to the earth,” he said. ‘’It can be a positive contribution in your final act. And when it comes to casket options. People can choose among wicker, pine and cardboard caskets or an ecopod, made entirely from recycled materials. Others can even choose to have the deceased wrapped in a shroud.
Guelph’s Barber Gallery has an ecopod on display, which curator Leslie Haves says hasn’t been a popular request by local funeral directors. Designed by Irish artist Hazel Selena. it was created six years ago as a radical departure from the traditional casket designs and can carry up to 115 kilograms while weighing only 14 kilograms. It’s biodegradable and made entirely from recycled materials, allowing Irish manutacturer Arka to sell it and a similar line of acorn-shaped urns as the environmentally sound choice for funerals.
Salisbury said the eco-cemetery call drastically cut costs for families as the national average of funeral and burial costs in Canada total between $5,000 and $6.000. The funeral services industry earned $1.4 billion in 2003. Statistics Canada says. The natural cemetery concept has gained popularity in Great Britain and Europe, where hundreds of natural or “woodside” cemeteries create nature preserves.
But Bruce Humphrey, president of the Ontario Funeral Service Association, said he doesn’t see the trend catching on quite as fast with Canadians. In fact, as a funeral director for 35 years, he has never received a request for “green” burials and he doesn’t see it suddenly become popular with his customers.
“Everyone goes to cemeteries looking at ancestry” Humphrey said.” If there are no markers it loses the chronology of the family” Salisbury responded that future generations could still locate an ancestor’s final resting place as burial locations would be mapped with a GIS (geographic information system) co-ordinates and that nemorials would still have a place in an natural cemetery however they would be designed in a very dirrent manner to mantian the natural attraction of the new cemetery.
Although people have not requested natural burials, Paul Taylor general manager of the Woodlawn Cemetery realizes the funeral industry is constantly changing. In fact, about 40 to 50 per cent of Guelph residents opt for cremations instead of traditional casket burials, he said. “I believe the community in the future will become more environmentally conscious and they will be asking for things with the environment in mind,” he said.
Taylor said that in the past year. Woodlawn has offered double-depth burials. which would see two loved ones buried on top of each other to conserve land use. In the future, he even sees a portion of their cemetery devoted to natural burials.
“Everybody’s version of green is different,’ he said. “We need to figure out what shade of green Guelph residents want.”