warning Hi, we've moved to USCANNENBERGMEDIA.COM. Visit us there!

Neon Tommy - Annenberg digital news

Green Burials Take The Greener Path To Greener Fields

Emilie Mutert |
January 6, 2010 | 8:03 a.m. PST

Senior Editor

Burial shrouds, which are already commonly used in Asia, Africa and the Middle East,
are emerging in the U.S. as increasingly popular alternatives to wood and steel burial
caskets. (photo courtesy of www.kinkaraco.com)

Before funeral director Diego Salvador left his home country of Ecuador to come to America at the age of 18, he had never seen an embalmed corpse.

"So, I was surprised at how accepted the practice of embalming was when I moved to the United States," Salvador said.

He had been to a handful of Ecuadorian funerals, he said, but embalming was not the custom there. Dead bodies were kept refrigerated after death to stave off odor, but only long enough for loved ones' goodbyes and a burial. Salvador said that when he started his funeral business in the U.S., he was turned off by the embalming process. 

Embalming, or preserving a corpse with the use of a chemical fixative made primarily of formaldehyde, methanol and ethanol to halt decomposition, involves making two incisions: one in the neck and one in the leg. The blood is drained out of the veinous system by way of one of the incisions. Internal body cavities are treated by inserting a long tube and removing any gas or liquids to prevent their bursting. The fixative chemicals are injected by a tube inserted in the arterial system that is connected to a machine that sends the embalming fluid through the tube. The embalming fluid can bleach the color of the skin, so to create a more flesh-toned appearance, dyes are usually added to the body through the incisions as well. 
"I did not like that you had to cut open the body. I think most people do it to retard the odor, but I prefer to just comb the hair, wash the body and close the eyes," he said. "To me, it is a more natural way to say good-bye; since they are no longer alive, why should you try to make it look like they are?" 
The chemicals, used to preserve the image of vivacity in the deceased for funeral viewings and to stave off odor, are carcinogenic. The European Union banned the use of formaldehyde altogether in 2007 because the chemical was found to be "toxic by inhalation, in contact with skin and if swallowed" and to have "evidence of a carcinogenic effect." Funeral homes in the U.S. are required by law to provide embalming services to their clients because there are strict regulations for corpses that need to be transported from state to state or country to country. The idea is that people aren't supposed to be driving and shipping decomposing corpses all over the country willy-nilly; but given the option, many families choose embalming anyway so that they can have a viewing of their loved one at the funeral. 
"If there will be a funeral with a viewing the family will usually want to embalm. But I don't like making my employees work with carcinogenic chemicals," Salvador said. Salvador's concerns about embalming mirror some of the concerns of Joe Sehee and others who are attempting to raise awareness of the "green burial" or "natural burial" movement that has been gradually gaining support in the United States. 
Sehee, a former Jesuit lay minister, is the founder of the Green Burial Council. Green burials eschew the use of carcinogenic embalming chemicals, nonbiodegradable coffins and reinforced concrete burial vaults for the sake of helping to preserve the natural environment. Rather than chemically preserving a corpse, the corpse is instead refrigerated until the burial. And rather than using satin-lined, wood-stained coffins or concrete grave liners, the body is laid to rest wrapped in a shroud, perhaps laid in a biodegradable bamboo or wood casket, and placed in the dirt. The graves are often marked with a natural gravemarker like a plant, a flower bed, a rock or a tree. 
Religions from Judaism to Buddhism to Christianity all espouse the almost-cliched sentiment that death is a part of life. But in the U.S. today, the culture surrounding death and the deathcare industry seems almost in direct opposition to the spiritual acceptance of death. From the moment a person dies, the multi-billion dollar funeral industry takes over, providing the bereaved with shiny coffins, reinforced concrete grave liners, headstones and chemical preservatives to provide loved ones with the chemically-induced image of a living person until the body is buried six feet under. 
The era of using chemicals to preserve the human form after death began during the U.S. Civil War, when war-torn family members would travel to soldiers' funerals out-of-state or carry their sons' bodies across state lines for burial. The traveling and transporting of bodies made the use of fixatives a viable option at that time, as travel was slow and often outpaced by bodies' decomposition. The chemicals firmed the skin and tissue of the deceased and kept their odor at bay during the transportation and burial. 
"Today what's strangest about embalming is that it's still being used as much as it is, since a corpse can be preserved far longer if it's kept in a cooler," Sehee said. The modern burial tradition in the U.S. is to place the embalmed corpse in a coffin, usually constructed out of wood and lined with satin. The coffin is lowered into the ground, and it rests inside a steel-reinforced concrete grave liner or vault that will hold the coffin steady underneath the ground.  
Coffins, like the embalming process, were not used much in the U.S. until the late 18th century. Prior to that, most of the deceased were buried instead in shrouds, which are essentially cloth wrappings, or swaddling clothes. Shrouds are still used today to bury the dead in many countries, Sehee said. On a trip to Israel, he said he was struck by the universal use of shrouds to bury the dead, which was a stark contrast to the elaborate caskets of wood, steel and metal used by the Jewish communities Sehee had observed within the U.S. 
Sehee met Esmerelda Kent at Fernwood Funeral Home in Mill Valley, California. Kent, a former costume designer, was inspired to go to work at Fernwood, an eco-friendly funeral home and cemetery, by her own mother's death and by the HBO television series, 'Six Feet Under.' She loved that she could help provide people the option of giving their loved ones a natural burial, she said, but she was disturbed by the appearance of the burial shrouds. "They were ugly," she said. "I thought, no one will ever want their mother to be laid to rest in those." So Kent used her costume background combined with her passion for her new industry to dream up and create a line of "stylish and functional" burial shrouds. She now owns her own business, Kinkaraco, which has sold burial shrouds to people in over 23 states. 
A few years ago, Kent said, she had only sold a total of four shrouds over a period of three years. But since a Business Week article featured her business in 2008, she said, business is booming and now consumes most of her time. Her shrouds are made from natural materials like cotton, muslin, and linen, which are all biodegradable. And, Kent points out, because her shrouds are made in America, unlike many burial shrouds and coffins, their carbon footprint is small and, therefore, more green. 
Reinforced concrete vaults or graveliners are not required by law, but they are a standard mandated prerequisite for burial at many cemeteries in the U.S. This is a requirement not because it is better for the deceased, Salvador said, but because it keeps the wood or metal coffin from shifting beneath the earth. This makes it easier for cemeteries to mow and maintain their lawn: coffins shifting underground can make the grounds lumpy and uneven. 
Coffins and vaults are usually marketed as means of protecting the body. But the fact is, Sehee said, coffin-and-vault burials often produce a far more gruesome form of decomposition than burial without them. A body in the earth breaks down fairly rapidly in most environments. One that is embalmed, sealed in a casket and put into a vault or wall crypt, on the other hand, must contend with anaerobic bacteria. Bacteria that survive and thrive in environments without oxygen can cause the liquefying of tissue and, if they weren't punctured or drained enough during the embalming process, the bursting of internal body cavities. 
Each year in the U.S., coffins and vaults result in more metal being put in the ground than was used to make the Golden Gate Bridge and enough concrete to build a two-lane highway from New York to Detroit, according to Sehee. He conducted the research and did the math himself, he said, because there is a startling lack of data compiled about the amount of materials and energy used to bury our dead. The 827,060 gallons of chemical embalming fluid buried in the ground each year is enough to fill eight Olympic-sized swimming pools. And, because the chemicals don't permanently prevent decomposition, the formaldehyde will leak out of the body, leech through the burial coffin and return to the soil, probably within three years and possibly in as little as six months. 
First introduced in England about a dozen years ago, green burial has evolved as a tool for environmental restoration in the U.S., thanks in part to a rural physician who is also a cemeterian. Dr. William Campbell began in 1998 to pioneer ideas like filling in graves with twigs to create micro-channels that encourage decomposition and bring soil nutrients up to the surface rather than down toward the concrete liner, as traditional methods of grave-filling do. Campbell also developed mounding techniques to counterbalance the sinking of the ground that normally takes place on cemetery land because of soil compression and the gradual deterioration of wooden coffins. Campbell also introduced the use of natural gravemarkers like fieldstones and native wildflowers. 
About eight years after Campbell began popularizing the use of these green techniques, the green burial movement had its own near-death experience. In 2005, the Fernwood Cemetery opened and marketed itself as the first green cemetery near a major metropolitan area (San Francisco). Fernwood claimed that it did not allow embalming of corpses and that it held a conservation easement that would protect its land in perpetuity. A New Yorker article revealed these claims to be false, causing a rash of bad publicity for the movement. 
The bad rap generated by the Fernwood mini-scandal inspired Sehee to establish the Green Burial Council to keep the green burial movement alive. With board members representing organizations like AARP, the Funeral Consumers Alliance, and the Trust for Public Land, one of the nation's largest conservation groups, in July 2007 the GBC published standards that cemeteries and funeral professionals must meet to qualify as council-approved providers. 
Consumers can now more easily identify and patronize deathcare businesses that operate in an ethical and environmentally sound way. And while business for green burial providers and suppliers has been somewhat stalled by the economy, a recent AARP poll revealed that 21 percent of people age 50 and over do support greener deathcare practices, although at least two percent of that 21 percent also reported having no idea what kind of greener options were available. That is why those pioneering the green burial movement, like Sehee, see educating the public as an important role they must play at this point in getting the movement off the ground. 
"Green burial represents not only a way to accommodate those who wish to live, and die, with a lighter hand on the land," Sehee said, "but it's a vehicle to reconnect with people who've become disenchanted by what they perceive as their very limited choices." 
Despite setbacks, Sehee and others, like Kent, are optimistic about the movement's future. Sehee is working with large funeral homes and institutions to help bridge the gap between green burials and commercially-driven corporate institutions. He sees that the success of this venture lies "less in connecting the dots between conservation and deathcare, and more in the ability to demonstrate that seemingly disparate concepts - economic viability and ecological sustainability - can co-exist." 
"And that may be what it will take to make 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust' once again meaningful," Sehee said.

Reach reporter Emilie Mutert here. Join Neon Tommy's Facebook fan page or follow us on Twitter.

 



 

Buzz

Craig Gillespie directed this true story about "the most daring rescue mission in the history of the U.S. Coast Guard.”

Watch USC Annenberg Media's live State of the Union recap and analysis here.