Roger Powley is a self taught field biologist, a singer, songwriter and an active member of The Humanists Association of Toronto.
Green burial is an environmentally friendly approach to interment of the dead. Popular in Europe and especially the U.K., where it accounts for an estimated 10 percent of all burials, it is attracting growing notice in the United States and Canada. I believe it is the way of the future. Green burial is a cheap and easy way to preserve and increase our green space and wildlife habitat.
What is wrong with our current system? Conventional cemeteries require costly upkeep. Grass must be cut, watered, fertilized, and sprayed with poisons. Trees and shrubs must be pruned and trimmed. Add to that the waste of natural resources associated with traditional burials: each year Americans alone inter 827,000 gallons of embalming fluid, 104,000 tons of steel, 2,700 tons of copper and bronze, 1,636,000 tons of concrete, and 30-plus million board feet of hardwoods, some from tropical rain forests.
What is wrong with cremation? Cremation releases mercury into the environment—estimates run between 1,000 and 7,800 pounds of the poisonous metal each year in the U.S. alone. As cremains are usually interred in conventional cemetery plots, cremation does nothing to protect green space. It wastes energy (one hundred cubic meters of natural gas or 180 gallons of fuel per body) and contributes to the release of greenhouse gases.
Green burial: a fresh alternative. With green burial, the picture is far different. First, the body is not embalmed. Therefore, the body must be buried shortly after death. No objects are buried with the body that cannot biodegrade. Coffins are also biodegradable, made of materials such as cardboard, bamboo, and wicker.
Where does this occur? Any expanse of natural space could lend itself to a green-burial facility, what I call a “dedication park.” This use would be ecologically beneficial for almost any site, so long as its preparation did not require clearing existing forest. Dedication parks could serve to anchor and protect valuable sites such as wildlife habitats, endangered species habitats, or important bird-migration sites.
How are burials marked? There are no monuments on individual graves. A plaque on the perimeter of the burial area would bear the names of those buried there. Where a grave marker is desired, options would include to plant a native tree, shrub, fern, wildflower, or grass. Over time, the site might become a beautiful natural forest—ideally, a preserve for wildlife, not crowds of humans, cyclists, motorized vehicles, or dog walkers. In the future, should visitors wish to locate a specific grave site, this could easily be done by reference to GPS coordinates recorded at the time of burial.
The funeral or memorial: Since green burial takes place almost immediately after death, any funeral or memorial will likely occur after interment. Family and other loved ones might attend the physical burial if they wish, but this is not an important event in a green burial. The memorial service can be planned with complete flexibility; the only strict limitation is that viewing of the body will not be possible. The memorial can be delayed as long as necessary, so that relatives from far-off locations can attend. It can be held almost anywhere—for example, in a family home, a much more relaxed atmosphere than a sterile funeral home.
For more information, visit (in the U.S.) or . (in Canada).
CFI SUMMIT
OCTOBER 24-27 2013
TACOMA, WASHINGTON
Joint Conference of the Council for Secular Humanism, Center for Inquiry, and Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
The transnational secular humanist magazine
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