By Stacy Trevenon, The Half Moon Bay Review
El Granadan Jane Hillhouse recalls considering what she’d want for her own funeral. Something simple. An artist friend could decorate it with things she loved: gardening, music, sailing.
Then, inspiration struck.
“In the very next second, Oh! ‘Colorful Coffins!’” said an animated Hillhouse, naming the business she hopes to launch. “I was always one for alliteration.”
That image quickly grew beyond wordplay into an idea of how to counter cemeteries’ environmental impacts, help bereaved families and fill a niche in the environmental awareness movement. Green, or environmentally sensitive, and family-friendly funerals are a growing concern.
The idea, like Hillhouse herself, comes from England, where Hillhouse says green burial has been around for some 20 years. It means “You will be placed in the ground without a trace of anything toxic or anything that won’t decompose,” she said.
It means laid to rest in a biodegradable casket or biodegradable urns for those who choose cremation. Those can be of various materials she can obtain for customers: cardboard, pottery, gourd, or her favorite woven willow, with hemp shrouds.
As the green movement gathers momentum, the idea is catching on here - but slowly.
“Most people probably don’t feel comfortable with it (yet),” said Greg Miller, manager of the Miller-Dutra Coastside Chapel, Half Moon Bay. “But it shows how far we’ve come, in understanding that funerals really are for the living.”
“It’s not very well defined by anybody now,” said Skyline Memorial Park General Manager Chuck Hotchkiss.
Environmental awareness plays a growing role in life today. But it is also gaining prominence in death. European Union regulators are seeking to ban formaldehyde which is commonly used in preserving deceased human bodies.
That is not to mention, Hillhouse said, the retooling of countless acres of land into neatly manicured cemeteries.
“I’ve been to cemeteries and they’re so ‘feelingless,’” she said sadly. “No spirit at all. I would far rather have a lovely garden view.”
Her vision jibes with that of a handful of states including Texas, Washington, South Carolina, California - and New Mexico, where a proposed 10-acre green burial site is proposed as part of an open space park being purchased by the Commonwealth Conservancy, according to boston.com.
New York has the Greensprings National Cemetery, where bodies cannot be embalmed and steel vaults are verboten. Instead, the departed are buried in biodegradable coffins or shrouds.
The financial discrepancies between conventional and green burials alone are enough to create another kind of heaven or hell for the living. According to the New York Daily News (”‘Green’ burials cut costs,” Sept. 28, 2006), funeral costs average $6,500 nationwide while at Greensprings, the bill would list $500 for the plot and $450 for gravedigging.
Burial or scattering of ashes at sea is another cost-saving option, with services as low as $200 for one service, or $650 when relatives accompany the boat, according to the New York Daily News article.
Burial at sea is “perfectly legal,” Hotchkiss said. He also said he expects new rules to appear for green burials.
“In any process, people adapt,” Miller said.
Hillhouse says she envisions dedicated cemetery plots that could almost be parks - with hillsides and plant growth evolving naturally, and with bicycling or hiking paths. “Beautiful spaces with native (plants) all around, and bodies in the ground,” she said “But they’re going to help the process too.”
Her vision may be shaped by regulations through California Health and Safety and business codes, enforced by the Cemetery and Funeral Bureau, a part of the Consumer Affairs Department.
A process is what she has in mind, with family members and close friends attending the deceased. It’s a matter of thinking ahead and accepting mortality, she said.
“It’s all wrapped into getting people to plan and face the fact they’re going to die,” she said. I want people to think through it and plan ahead of time. They can use these things to help them.
“If I can bring anybody peace and help them have a more meaningful separation from their loved one, that would be wonderful,” she said.
Hillhouse will have a booth at the Green Festival on Nov. 10, 11 and 12 at the San Francisco Concourse Exhibition Center at Eighth and Brannan streets.
For information, visit www.colorfulcoffins.com.
source - http://www.hmbreview.com/articles/2006/11/09/community/community_news/story01.txt