Resources and Information Supporting Green Burial in North America
By Rebecca James, Syracuse Post-Standard
Susan Thomas’ dog bounds across the field, leaping out of the underbrush that covers the southern Tompkins County hilltop, intent on the scent of some small creature. Meanwhile, Thomas and Ed Oyer talk about death. The artist and the retired professor both like the idea of finding stone benches for this land where the names of the dead can be inscribed.
The first environmentally-friendly cemetery in New York state may be coming to Newfield.
By Michele Reaves, Ithaca Journal
The Green Springs Natural Cemetery Association — a four-member group made up of Ithaca and Corning residents — wants to create a cemetery on Irish Hill Road where people are buried without embalming fluids, concrete vaults or elaborate coffins. Bodies would be placed in simple pine boxes in plots no smaller than 10 feet by 15 feet, said Mary Woodsen, the association’s president. Cremated bodies could also be spread over the land.
By David Sheffield, The Link
My grandmother ended her journey through this life a couple of months ago. She had lived generously and she died well. When the time came to look into funeral arrangements, we found that she had pre-planned, pre-paid, and taken care of all of the details herself. She was an independent gal right to the end.
The funeral home she had chosen was outstanding in their attention to her wishes and our feelings as we grieved her loss. As I observed the process of how we deal with the death of our loved ones, however, it became apparent to me that something as simple and natural as death may have become unnecessarily complicated.
Go out in style with this egg-shaped eco-friendly pod casket.
Death is something we all have to deal with at some point, and who wants to end up six feet under in a chintzy brass and pine casket? It sounds like a fate worse than death to us.
Pushing up daisies is nature’s way, after all
By Betty Booker, Times-Dispatch
Green burial is a new trend that’s as old as death itself.
Let’s not mince words: It’s the disposal of a corpse so that it merges quickly with nature. In other words, ecological in this world, and presumably the next.