The Funeral Law Blog

One More Way to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint: Rethinking Disposition After Death

We are constantly being reminded to consider our environmental impact while we are living.  But, what about our environmental impact after death?  How can we “die green?” 

The “American Way of Death” (also the title of a book authored by Jessica Mitford in 1963) is to be buried in a cemetery in a lined wooden or metal casket, which is encased in a concrete vault, with a concrete tombstone marking our resting place.  Some caskets are made of endangered wood, like mahogany and rosewood.  In addition, every year 5.3 million gallons of embalming fluid are buried with the dead in the United States.  Whether it is endangered wood, metal caskets where metals known to have detrimental health effects can leach into the ground, or embalming fluid containing formaldehyde, the environmental impact of this way of death is very real.  

But as more and more people continue to think about their environmental impact, people are starting to want a “green burial.”  According to a January 2015 survey, the demand for green burials has increased 72.4 percent at facilities that offer them.  In response to this demand, the Green Burial Council is trying to make this choice a reality, rather than the inconvenience that it currently is.

How does the Green Burial Council help?  This organization encourages three practices: (1) not embalming, (2) not using metal or non-biodegradable caskets, and (3) not using concrete vaults.  However, some state laws prevent people from choosing these practices.  For example, some states require that families retain services of a licensed funeral director.  Licensed funeral directors are not obligated to offer environmentally friendly options (only 80 cemeteries currently will allow for burials without vaults.  Therefore, making a green burial a reality will require a cultural shift, and work in state legislatures.  However, articles like this one by the Huffington Post, and author Suzanne Kelly’s book Greening Death are possibly the start of this shift.  We will have to wait and see.  

Taylor Ey

Options in Green Burial

Traditional American funerals rituals have three parts, the visitation, funeral, and the burial service. During the visitation, the embalmed, deceased body is placed in a casket and put on display, usually in a viewing room at the funeral home. Next is the funeral, which is a memorial service usually officiated by clergy from the decedent's church or religion. The final step is the burial service, traditionally conducted at the side of the grave, tomb, mausoleum or crematorium. At the close of the burial service the decedent is buried or cremated.

Traditional ground burial involves placing a casket into a grave, usually dug in a cemetery. Most cemeteries set a container, or cement vault in to the earth to hold the casket. The toll both funerals and cremations take on the environment each year is shocking, including the use of 30 million board feet of casket wood, 90,000 tons of steel, 1.6 million tons of concrete for burial vaults, and 800,000 gallons of embalming fluid. But there is another option. Green burial is an increasingly used alternative that is simple and natural. Green burial involves the interment of bodies in bio-degradable caskets, shrouds, or a personal cloth. There is no embalming and no concrete vaults.

The first "green cemetery," Ramsey Creek Preserve, was opened in the United States in 1998. Ramsey Creek was opened by Memorial Ecosystems Inc., which is a company focused on the development of multi-functional memorial nature preserves that protect and restore land and provide a less expensive and more meaningful burial option.  Ramsey Creek Preserve was the Green Burial Council's first Certified Conservation Burial Ground in the U.S. The Preserve is protected by a protection agreement crafted to ensure that the Preserve will be conserved and "forever wild." 

The Green Burial Council has three types of certifications for cemeteries to be considered a green burial site (the standards for each are set forth in this table). The lowest level is certification for traditional cemeteries that offer the option for burial without the need for a vault or embalming and they must allow the use of eco-friendly burial containers including shrouds. The other two certifications must prohibit the use of vaults and embalming and must ban the use of burial containers that are not made from natural or plant derived materials. The last certification additionally requires environmental conservation. 

Passages is a producer of eco-friendly burial containers. They sell eco-friendly caskets and water and earth biodegradable urns. The website makes clear that every person has different standards for what they feel is a natural or green funeral and that the company seeks to provide options for all the varying needs. Eco-friendly caskets are marketed to be used for traditional or green burials. Passages says that each casket is suitable for viewing and services, followed by burial or cremation. The eco-friendly nature of using a green burial container and then placing it in a vault or crematorium, is quite antithetical to the notion of environmentally friendly burial. 

Green burial is a valid alternative to traditional American burial, that provides people with a cheaper, environmentally friendly option. The Green Burial Council has approved more than 340 green burial providers (both funeral homes, cemeteries, and product providers) in the U.S. and Canada. The Green Burial Council website provides a list of approved providers.

Emily Morris

The Tree of Life

The tree of life is a metaphor that appears in many different areas of study from religion, to biology, to literature.  However, thanks to two Italian designers the tree of life may soon no longer be limited to metaphor.  Anna Citelli and Raoul Bretzel have designed a biodegradable burial pod in which the body of the deceased is placed in the fetal position inside the pod and a tree is planted over the pod.  As the body decomposes it releases nutrients to the tree above.  The designers envision cemeteries with markers and headstones replaced by trees designating the burial places of loved ones.  They have also designed smaller pods for the burial of cremains. 

The designers have run into legal trouble with their burial pod design in their native Italy, which forbids “natural burials.”  However, there is a strong possibility that their design would be legal under many states’ statutes.  Despite being a non-traditional burial method, the body or cremains are still placed inside a container and interred in the ground with no intention to disinter the remains at a later date.  This is a key design element which would allow the burial pods to be legal in many parts of the United States. 

Turning to North Carolina, in addition to donation, the state provides for two methods of disposition: burial or cremation.  While this may seem limiting, “burial” is described as, “interment in any form, cremation and the transportation of the dead human body as necessary therefor.” N.C. Gen. Stat. § 90-210.20(c).  This is an incredibly broad definition of burial and as a result is inclusive of ideas such as burial pods.  The only regulation on how a burial is to take place is that, “when final disposition of a human body entails interment, the top of the uppermost part of the  . . . encasement shall be a minimum of 18 inches below the ground surface.” N.C. Gen. Stat. § 65-77.  When an individual is cremated, North Carolina law only demands that the cremains of multiple individuals not be comingled together or placed in the same closed container unless the individuals are of the same family.  N.C. Gen. Stat. § 90-210.130.  Burial pods designed to nourish trees are perfectly legal under these provisions as each set of cremains would receive their own pod and corresponding tree.  Therefore, while on the surface the concept of a biodegradable burial pod designed to nourish a tree with the help of a decomposing human body may seem strange, it is highly likely that the design is legal under existing North Carolina law.  

Lindsey Rogers

Kenyon College Creating Green Cemetery

Philander Chase Corporation, a conservation land trust connected to Kenyon College of Gambier, Ohio, has announced that it is planning to establish a “green cemetery” on a piece of land that it recently acquired.  Green cemeteries are cemeteries that conduct burials in a manner that minimizes negative environmental impacts and promotes ecological health, and a conservation land trust is a non-profit organization that maintains real property to preserve its ecology, resources, or landmarks on the property.  

The Philander Chase Corporation was created in 2000 to preserve the beauty of the rural land surrounding Kenyon College and to prevent unwanted development.  The land purchased by the Philander Chase Corporation for the green cemetery is currently an 18-hole golf course, but the course will be transformed into a 9-hole golf course so that the remaining portion of the course can become green cemetery.  One of the Philander Chase Corporation’s board members, Stephen Christy, is also a board member of the Green Burial Council, a non-profit organization that encourages and creates guidelines for green burials.  He helped push for the creation of the cemetery.  Philander Chase Corporation anticipates creating between 2,000 to 4,000 burial sites on the new land.  Each plot will cost $4,000 (the price includes a donation that will be used for long-term conservation efforts in the cemetery).

With this latest purchase, the Philander Chase Corporation now holds easements on nearly 5,000 acres of land in the region surrounding Kenyon College’s campus.

Sean Radler

Going Green: The New Black?

The idea of a “green,” or environmentally friendly, burial is not a recent development but it has gained substantial popularity in the last few years. In a survey conducted by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) in 2007, 44% of respondents ages 65 and over indicated an interest in a green burial. The leading organization for setting green burial standards and providing certification for funeral homes is the Green Burial Council. The Council is run by mostly volunteers but has an attorney on its advisory board and claims to maintain all relevant legal documentation to demonstrate proof of compliance with GBC standards including conservation easements and deed restrictions. Natural burial practices include not treating the body with any chemicals like formaldehyde, using a biodegradable and nontoxic coffin or shroud and not using traditional gravestones. Green burials differ from conservation burials, which require a land trust to be willing to hold a conversation easement for the land. The requirement of an easement ensures that the standards for conversation burial on that land will be upheld in perpetuity.

One local government was not convinced by the environmental benefits of green burials and is refusing to allow GBC certified cemeteries in its town. On November 4, 2008 Bibb County, Georgia was the first county to ban green burials by enacting an ordinance that made it impossible for cemeteries offering environmentally friendly options to open. Small town rumors caused fear among citizens about decomposing bodies leaking into the groundwater and causing contamination. One particular legal concern regarding this ordinance is its requirement that burials in new cemeteries use leak-proof caskets and vaults. With no such caskets and vaults existing at this time, funeral directors would be in direct violation of the Federal Trade Commission’s Funeral Rule and Georgia state law, which bars them from misrepresenting the qualities of burial boxes.

Bibb County appears to be the proverbial black sheep because as of today, there are no other counties that have passed an ordinance banning cemeteries that offer green burials. If there are any residents of Bibb County that are still interested in having a green burial, GBC’s website listed a certified cemetery in Conyers, Georgia, a town an hour away from Macon. 

This story was originally reported in the Funeral Consumers Alliance blog. 

Samantha Davis