By Kara Mayer Robinson, North Jersey Record
When Jim Robson of Rochelle Park considers what his body may have to endure when he eventually dies, he’s downright disgusted. “I do not want to be drained and filled with some goop, locked in a metal casket, then tossed into a cement tomb,” he says. “Umm, hello … I am dead. What is the point?”
During one of the final episodes of the HBO series “Six Feet Under,” Robson witnessed something that may affect him for all eternity. When one of the show’s main characters was buried in a hand-dug hole in a wooded nature preserve, wrapped in nothing but a burlap bag, something about the eco-friendly, “green” burial resonated with Robson. Like many of the 3 million viewers that watched, he felt a gut reaction that said, Yes, that’s it. When it’s my time, that’s how I want to go.
A departure from traditional burials arranged by America’s $11 billion funeral industry, green burials typically take place in a nature preserve rather than a cemetery. Bodies are not embalmed, caskets are either biodegradable or eliminated altogether, and graves are marked by a simple, flat stone. Exemplifying the concept of “ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” the body is placed naturally into the land - a powerful way to consecrate, heal and protect land, say earth burial advocates.
“We all take a lot from the planet,” says Mary Woodsen, president of Greensprings Natural Cemetery Association and vice president of Commemorative Nature Preserves of New York. “Even though it’s a small gesture, it’s symbolically a potent one. You’re replanting the earth.”
There’s no question that the concept of eco-burials is gaining ground. They are already popular in England, and the United States has gone from zero to four green-burial grounds since 1996. The country’s first site, South Carolina’s Ramsey Creek Preserve, was created by physician Billy Campbell, as a means to protect
and preserve land, as well as to create a less expensive and more meaningful burial method.
“This seems so natural and peaceful,” says Robson, a small-business owner. “Just plant me, then plant a tree and a small stone with my name on it. Come and visit in the fall when the leaves change, and relax,” an image that beats the idea of being embalmed, or as he puts it, being “filled with preservatives, like a Twinkie.”
A strong appeal of the eco-burial is the elimination of embalming. Recent research suggests that it poses health risks to embalmers. Green-burial advocates also say that it compromises the environment.
“What happens to all the body’s fluids when it’s embalmed?” wonders Woodsen. “Are they going down the drain? If so, are public sewerage plants up to snuff? Hazardous body products may be getting out there into groundwater. It makes me feel a little squeamish to think about it.”
Woodsen has compiled statistics about the resources consumed by the traditional funeral industry.
He says it takes between 40 million and 60 million feet of lumber per year to supply the industry with traditional coffins. And, because of the rising popularity of cremation (one in four people in New Jersey choose this option), the amount of natural gas needed to cremate bodies in North America in one year is equivalent to the fuel expended by a car making 84 trips to the Moon and back.
But for some, natural burials don’t feel all that natural. “I’d like my resting place to be as bug-and insect-free as possible,” says Nancy Robson, Jim’s wife and business partner. “My family can sit on the bench and talk to me, leave me flowers. That’s why I’d like to be in a mausoleum,” she says, even if her husband does refer to it as a filing cabinet. “I’m confident that I will know that my family is there. I’m sure I’ll be looking down on them.”
Others argue that being earth-friendly requires more than just the elimination of a coffin. “If we’re talking about being correct and recycling,” insists Wilson H. Beebe Jr., executive director of the New Jersey State Funeral Directors Association, “organ and tissue donation is an option for people who really want to be that tangible about it.”
The average cost of a funeral, according to the National Funeral Directors Association, is $6,500. But, argues Joe Sehee, founder and interim executive director of the Center for Ethical Burial, many funeral services that are considered standard practice are not only unnecessary but nothing more than tools to fill the deep pockets of profit-hungry business owners.
“It’s a bunch of hooey what the industry makes people think they have to do,” says Sehee, who recently partnered with Campbell to develop Memorial EcoSystems, a company dedicated to land preservation. By circumventing traditional burial options like grave liners, burial vaults, caskets and embalming, families can save thousands of dollars on the cost of a funeral. The cost of a green burial at Ramsey Creek, for instance, is about $2,000. That price includes a burial site within the preserve, memorial service arrangements, use of the chapel (under construction and “nearing completion,” according to Campbell), replanting and maintenance care.
Experts believe that green burials are a particularly appealing option for baby boomers, who have spent much of their lives communing with nature.
“These are people who have radically changed a lot of things in this world, and they’re not going to put up with the status quo,” says Sehee. A recent survey conducted by the Guardian Life Insurance Co. of America found that 80 percent of baby boomers are concerned about having adequate income during retirement, making the financial appeal another factor in favor of eco-burials.
Both Sehee and Woodsen report a flood of inquiries in recent months from people interested in arranging green burials for themselves or family members. What started with the eco-sensitive crowd has quickly spread to “the cost-conscious, religious traditionalists and outdoor enthusiasts,” says Sehee. “It resonates with a lot of people. We are born, we live, and we die. And we want to get in sync with that process.”
Susan Petersen, a Manhattan film executive who has a designated fund set aside for her own eco-burial, sees it as a way to ease the pain associated with death, for herself and her family. For one thing, it will reduce her family’s financial burden associated with the cost of a conventional funeral.
But more important, says Petersen, a green burial will allow her family to visit her gravesite in a natural setting rather than a “death-filled cemetery,” a powerful reminder that death is a part of life. “It connects the dots about the cycle of life,” says Petersen, noting that “in the end, burial grounds are for the living, not the dead.”
Source - http://www.northjersey.com/