LAWRENCE, Kansas – A lot of companies claim to be environmentally friendly, but one industry in Kansas is taking that concept to the extreme by going green to the grave. Now, the business of burial is becoming all-natural.
No one likes to think about their own death, but in the city of Lawrence people are also considering how their burial might affect the environment. And starting this year, they can turn that final resting place into fertilizer.
"You're really going back to the earth when you're buried here,” said former City Commissioner Bood Highberger.
Highberger came up with the idea – a first in the nation, designating a small section of Oak Hill Cemetery for what are called “green burials.”
“The way you see the spot now is similar to how it's gonna be after burials are here,” he said. ”There won't be any landscaping, no mowing. With the burials, there'll be no concrete vaults, caskets, containers have to be biodegradable."
And there are no polished headstones. The cemetery has sold only one plot so far, but a Lawrence funeral home is ready for more.
Woven caskets, also made of bamboo, are sold at Warren-McElwain Morturary. Everything about the coffin from the wooden handles to the linen shroud, even the head rest made form a banana tree stalk, is natural. They are made by Colorado company Ecoffins USA, and are promised to decompose after burial.
“Something like this will go away in six months to a year and feed the soil,” said Joanna Passarelli with Ecoffins USA.
And no chemicals will be left behind, because a body is not embalmed in a green burial.
"The body will be kept in refrigeration until the day of the service,” said a representative with Warren-McElwain Mortuary. “The body will be brought out, wrapped in this shroud and then put in this biodegradable casket."
Even urns for cremation are going green. Made of salt, paper or pottery, they too break down in the soil if buried. But environmentalist point out the fuel and heat used in cremation leave a huge carbon footprint.
And the cost of a green burial?
"I think eventually they will save 25 percent of the total costs to 75 percent, depending on what they choose,” the mortuary representative said.
So, whether it’s saving money or saving the environment, going green to the grave gets you back to nature once and for all.
While green burials are still relatively new in the U.S., the makers of E-coffins say they are quite common in England. In fact, their company has been making caskets there for almost a decade.
