Forest of Memories

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.

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By Darise Jean-Baptiste, The Ithaca Journal

NEWFIELD - For almost a month, BOCES welding students Shayne Jackson and Travis Darling have dedicated afew hours of their school days to create the “pallbearer’s  friend” - an aluminum cart with wheels and handles that will allow six people to easily transport caskets to gravesites.

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The nascent field of “green funerals” scored a publicity coup with last week’s episode of HBO’s “Six Feet Under.”

On the show, the main character Nate Fisher, is buried in the green style, which theorizes that upon death our bodies should be returned to earth in a way that benefits - rather than degrades - the ecosystem.

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