Resources and Information Supporting Green Burial in North America
The latest in green burial.
By Joe Sehee, Slate
Some cultures befriend death as best they can, with burial customs that embrace decay and regeneration. The American way of death has been to stave off decay with formaldehyde, bullet-proof caskets, and concrete burial vaults. But that may be changing.
By Robert Colville, The Telegraph
The baby boomer generation, pioneers of the green movement, is taking environmental activism to the grave with ethical burials. Funerals designed to have a minimal impact on the environment are the fastest-growing trend in the market, according to specialist funeral directors springing up across the country.
By Bruce Collier, Beachcomber Magazine
John Wilkerson is one of those fortunate people who gets to do what he loves, and call it his job. Wilkerson and his associate Barbara operate the Glendale Memorial Nature Preserve (GMNP), north of DeFuniak Springs. Wilkerson says he acquired the 350-acre property “the old fashioned way—I inherited it.”
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.
By Cecil Adams, The Straight Dope / Salt Lake City Weekly
Dear Cecil:
Do you ever wonder: in those houses built strategically next to graveyards, are the occupants drinking residual waste products (or atoms that the body is composed of) of those buried next to them? Think about it–if they’re drinking well water, coffins begin to break down over time, right? Is it plausible to assume they are consuming their beloved deceased? Just something I have always thought about. –H.M., via e-mail
Woodland burial grounds are fast becoming the resting place of choice.
By Jonny Beardsall, The Telegraph
Woodland burials are the future. With growing demand for spaces in conventional cemeteries, as well as rising maintenance costs and increasing problems of vandalism, more and more people are coming round to the idea of ending up under a tree instead of a dreary headstone. But should you die soon and have no woodland burial site close by - and there are only about 200 in Britain - your relatives may be forced to overlook your last wishes.
By Peter Fimrite, the San Francisco Chronicle
Marsha Goldberg has every intention of pushing up daisies when she dies. Daisies, wildflowers and a big redwood tree, too.
Goldberg is calling dibs on her choice of burial sites on a hilly, forested 32-acre stretch of land in Mill Valley, where she is making plans to become fertilizer at the country’s first permanently protected cemetery, nature preserve and wildlife sanctuary.
Eco-friendly funerals break new ground
By Francesca Lyman, MSNBC.com
For some, there’s nothing more ghastly than the idea of having their mortal remains embalmed, sealed in a metal and plastic casket and buried in a cement vault. They’d prefer to be buried “au naturel.” So some companies are thinking outside of the box and offering Earth-friendly burials amid the earth, trees and sea.