The Green Goodbye
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 01.27.07
Greensprings Natural Cemetery, Finger Lakes, New York State
We have done this plot to death on TreeHugger (links at end), but all of the action has been in the UK or California. Now eco-friendly burials have come to the Northeast and Canada. For example, Greensprings Natural Cemetery opened in May, with 100 acres bounded by 4,000 acres of forest. A gravesite costs $ 500 bucks, a tenth of an uban Toronto cemetery plot. There have been four burials so far, two in biodegradable cardboard caskets, one in a coffin made from locally harvested pine, and one in a shroud. Several groups are trying to establish natural burial cemeteries in Ontario.
"Make your burial a statement of values by helping create a forest", says Mike Salisbury, one of the founders of the Natural Burial Coop, a group in southern Ontario. "If you're buried where roots grow through your bones, you're doing what you're supposed to do – give back in the end."
More from the Star:
This latest back-to-the-earth movement started in England about a dozen years ago, then spread to the United States, where four green cemeteries have blossomed, including one in upstate New York.
A green goodbye means no toxic embalming chemicals such as formaldehyde. That one is on the European Union's list for possible banning.
Coffins should be biodegradable; perhaps made from locally harvested wood, wicker or even recycled paper, perhaps decorated with good-bye messages from friends. "As long as the cardboard doesn't look cheap," warns [Ontario co-op founder] Salisbury, "like you're UPSing the guy to the afterlife." ::The Star
Read also: Slate on the latest in green burial
Promessa Organic Sustainable Burial
Eco-friendly Burial lets you be green forever
and many more.
You say that "all of the action is in the UK and California". Ramsey Creek in South Carolina has been up and running for 9 years. We have 80 people "in the ground", and have sold 300 plots. In early summer 07, we will be opening a second site in the Atlanta metro area in partnership with a monastery, helping them and the local gvt protect a large tract along the South River.
We assisted the non-profit Glendale Nature Preserve , located in the Florida panhandle in its efforts to get up and running 4 or 5 years ago. The project is protecting 350 acres of farm land and wetlands. This part of Florida has a distinct rural "Southern" culture, so as odd as it might seem, the "action" on this side of the Atlantic is more in the southern US, with 3 active projects by June 07.
We consulted on the site in the San Francisco Bay area, but pulled out when the owner decided to do a hybrid project that would still allow new sites to be sold that included embalming.
You guys need to be careful to distinguish between "conservation burial" that follows guidelines to ensure that it furthers significant, landscape level conservation goals, and those that offer green burial, but do not do things like fine scale botanical surveys. Uninformed, poorly planned green burial could actually damage the ecological value of a site.
Joe Sehee's Santa Fe-based Green Burial Council has done a great job taking some guidelines that we developed, adding others and including consumer protection to ensure that projects help conservation and offer consumers good information.