Death is an Environmental Issue

You can now go green to the grave in Utah. The burial site, Lakeview, has been approved by the Green Burial Council, which sets green standards for cemeteries, funeral providers and burial products. Utah is the ninth state to establish a green burial option since 1998. Joe Sehee, founder of the Green Burial Council, says that eco-consciousness and the desire for those involved to have more control over end-of-life celebrations is creating a new market for eco-burials in America.

America cares – even after you’re dead

“Death care” has come to mean stopping and concealing the natural process of decay, first by embalming the body and second by sealing it in a casket (nobody says coffin in America any more) and often, by then sealing that casket in a burial vault. But perspectives are changing. Many people find embalming gruesome and object to paying a fortune for a wood box that will be used for a few hours and then buried.

Sehee claims that America’s annual funeral arrangements bury enough metal to build the Golden Gate bridge and enough concrete to lay a two-lane highway from New York to Detroit.

Britain’s green and pleasant funeral land

Perhaps Americans should change adopt the British mentality – since the first edition of the Natural Death Handbook, when virtually no crematoria or cemetery would accept a body in a cardboard coffin, minimal-material burials have become widespread. There is a little niggle here – while you can buy a self-assembly, self-decorate coffin for £55 including delivery, a funeral director will charge quite a bit more to deliver the same product. That said, by 2003, nearly all funeral directors were also prepared to sell a coffin without any additional funeral services, an increase of more than 40% willing to do this on 1993.

Places to be seen dead in

And in the UK there are more than 200 burial sites approved by the Association of Natural Burial Grounds, and over half of them are run by local authorities.

So what stops America following the British route and allowing low-cost, low-impact funerals more widely? Is it squeamishness, the power of the funeral ‘business’, ignorance? Could it be the power of the church? Or is it simply a matter of geography: far flung families need longer to foregather for a leave-taking ceremony and so embalming becomes the norm?

Many Americans believe that embalming is required by law (this is only true if you are transporting the deceased by plane) and some funeral parlours require it before allowing a family viewing of the deceased – interestingly, they may be the very parlours that are owned by the funeral directors who promote embalming.

Your burial could be the death of others

Whatever the reason, America’s death-care practices cost the planet dear. Until the 1900s, arsenic was used in the embalming process – it sometimes leached into water tables and killed people downstream of cemeteries and even today, archaeologists working around old cemetery sites have to wear special clothing and goggles to protect themselves from arsenic contamination. 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid is buried in the United States each year. It’s a blend of dyes and preservatives along with phenol (causes chemical burns to live skin) and methanol (a flammable, toxic liquid).

While this potent blend has its worst effects on embalmers themselves, who are at higher risk of respiratory problems than the average population because of their exposure to embalming fluid, formaldehyde - a key embalming ingredient - is a known carcinogen that can be inhaled but also contaminates food if it gets into water or soil. Which is exactly where we put it, every time we embalm our nearest and dearest.

Non-stop funeral picture courtesy of Husky at Flickr under a Creative Commons Licence

Tweet This Post