Health & Happiness’s Spring 2017 issue included “Going Green, Permanently” by Nicole Walton on green burial. In response to increased local interest and opportunities in this arena since then, here’s an update on this important topic.
Cash in your chips, kick the bucket, pushing up daisies, buy the farm, bite the dust—regardless of what you choose to call it, we’re all going to do it someday.
For those of us fortunate to have lived long enough to attain senior status, thoughts of our demise may come along more often than in our earlier days, as well as questions about what our legacy will be to those who come after us.
When you do “push up those daisies,” will you be hurting the web of life, or helping it thrive?
According to a Berkeley Planning Journal article, over 800,000 gallons of formaldehyde are put into the ground with dead bodies every year in the US. “….the process of preserving and sealing corpses into caskets and then plunging them into the ground is extremely environmentally unfriendly. Toxic chemicals from the embalming, burial, and cremation process leach into the air and soil, and expose funeral workers to potentials hazards. And maintaining the crisp, green memorial plots is extremely land-and-water-use heavy…. with sprawling, pristine lawns that require a ton of water, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides to keep them a vibrant green. These chemicals can seep into water supplies or harm wildlife, such as bees.”(1)
“Conventional burials in the US each year use 30 million board feet of hardwoods, 2,700 tons of copper and bronze, 104,272 tons of steel, and 1,636,000 tons of reinforced concrete.
The amount of casket wood alone is equivalent to about 4 million acres of forest and could build about 4.5 million homes.” They also use up lots of land—approximately 1 million acres of land total in the US alone.(2)
Many now choose cremation instead. According to the National Funeral Directors Association, cremations have recently become the most popular end-of-life option for the remains of loved ones in the US. But as a 2019 National Geographic article explains, “While it’s true that cremation is less harmful than pumping a body full of formaldehyde and burying it on top of concrete, there are still environmental effects to consider… Cremation requires a lot of fuel, and it results in millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year.”(3)
Matthews Environmental Solutions, which manufactures cremation technologies, estimates that one cremation produces an average of 534.6 pounds of carbon dioxide. Its marketing division manager Paul Seyler estimates US cremations are responsible for approximately 360,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions each year.(4)
For those who don’t want to use up so much fuel or release so much carbon dioxide when they die, alkaline hydrolysis, also known as water cremation or aqamation, may be a more appealing option. This method of dissolving a body in water “has about a tenth of the carbon footprint of conventional cremation,” says Nora Menkin, executive director of the People’s Memorial Association.(5)
The process uses ninety-five percent water and five percent alkali, not acid, to dissolve the body. The amount of alkali used is determined by the person’s weight.(6)
Aquamation’s water byproduct is a great fertilizer that’s sometimes used on farmland. “But most places, it just goes into the municipal sewer system. And a lot of sewer systems actually appreciate it, because it actually helps with the quality of the wastewater,” says Menkin.(7)
While aquamation appears to be happening in elsewhere in Michigan, currently there are no facilities for it in the Upper Peninsula. So to do more good than harm when you leave your physical form behind, you may want to consider green burial.
According to the Green Burial Council, there are three types of green cemeteries:
- Hybrid Cemeteries—Burials without a concrete vault or chemical embalming are in a separate area of a conventional cemetery. A biodegradable container like a wicker basket or a cloth shroud is typically used.
- Natural burial cemeteries—Use the criteria described above only. When a dedicated natural burial cemetery has grave markers, they can’t be imported stones, but must instead use materials native to the area, such as local stone or even trees.
- Conservation burial ground—A conservation organization partners with it and deed resrictions are placed on the land to ensure its care follows appropriate crieteria, and remains in this use.(8)
For the living, green cemeteries can become recreational community spaces, Michigan landscape architect Wendy Fry explained in a Capital News Service article published by the Michigan State University School of Journalism.(9)
Fry encouraged an Ohio cemetery she worked with to replace large hedges with native plants and trees and let the grass grow out. Paths were laid out for people to walk through instead of mowed lawn. “It became more of a location for people to be able to sit in the cemetery at lunchtime and be outdoors, or to take a shortcut from one end of the cemetery,” she described.(10)
Brian Klatt, the director of the Michigan Natural Features Inventory at Michigan State University, said the idea of cemeteries as public recreational space dates back to the late 1800s and early 1900s. In cities like Detroit, Klatt said, cemeteries served as “green space in an area that was being evermore urbanized.”(11)
Beyond human uses, Klatt said green cemeteries can serve as “island habitats” that provide shelter, food, and water for wildlife and a habitat for plants, including species struggling with population decline.(12)
Klatt pointed to an example in Illinois, where there were more than thirty species per square mile in the areas of the cemetery that weren’t mowed, as a very high level of diversity for the area.(13)
According to a March 2023 Mining Journal article, Michigan currently has fourteen green burial sites, five of which are in the Upper Peninsula–in Chassell, Eagle Harbor, Houghton Township, Houghton, and Marquette.(14)
Thus far, all of the Upper Peninsula’s green burial sites are hybrid cemeteries. For example, since Park Cemetery’s rules and regulations were updated by the Marquette City Commission in 2019 due to strong public interest in more ecological burial practices, the Prairie Mound section near the community gardens has been designated for green burial.(15)
But being buried au naturelle takes more than the right location. You’ll need a funeral director and designated agent, family, and other survivors to understand and be willing to carry out your wishes for ecologically sound preparation of your body, choice of biodegradable materials/containers, winter burial options, and what, if any, natural marker you prefer.
You’ll find a helpful green burial planner developed by the Keweenaw Green Burial Alliance on its website, https://kgba.weebly.com, along with more green burial info and resources.
After all, when you do kick the bucket, you might as well have it spill over with nourishment for the earth rather than agents of its destruction.
1https://www.businessinsider.com/burying-dead-bodies-environment-funeral-conservation-2015-10#the-embalming-process-is-toxic-1
2 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 https://news.jrn.msu.edu/2023/03/more-cemeteries-offering-green-burials-recreational-space/
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Excerpt from the Fall 2023 issue of Health & Happiness U.P. Magazine, copyright 2023, Empowering Lightworks, LLC. All rights reserved.
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