Understanding the Process of Natural Burial

Birds do it. Bees do it. And unless a way to stop it is found, you’ll do it too — die, that is. Death has become a lucrative industry.

In our typical Western view, a traditional burial involves funeral directors, embalming, caskets, cemetery plots, vaults, headstones, flowers, and sometimes even sending ashes into space. The funeral industry in the U.S. generates about $11 billion annually and continues to expand [source: CNN]. However, this approach is evolving, with more individuals opting for a natural burial.

What we now consider traditional burial became the norm after the Civil War, when bodies were embalmed for preservation during transport. Before that, burials were often simpler, taking place in unmarked graves amidst tall grass. This simplicity is making a resurgence. In a poll conducted by AARP, over 70 percent of respondents favored green burial as the most attractive option [source: Green Burials].

What Is Green Burial?

Green burials, also known as natural burials, are believed to have originated in the late 1980s in the United Kingdom as a response to the overcrowding of land resources with cemeteries and burial grounds. While the exact definition of green burial can vary, the concept is centered around avoiding unnatural practices — no embalming with formaldehyde, no metal caskets, and no concrete burial vaults.

You might be thinking this sounds a bit unconventional; after all, when you’re gone, does it really matter if your burial is green? But consider the legacy — every year, 22,500 cemeteries in the United States bury the following:

[source: Glendale Memorial Nature Preserve]

The Environmental Impact of Traditional Burials

A traditional funeral and burial can cost upwards of $10,000 or more on average [source: Goldstein]. This typically covers the essentials: embalming, a casket, the funeral ceremony, and the burial. Additional costs like flowers, limousines, obituaries, and vaults are considered extras.

The financial cost is not the only issue. The components of traditional funeral practices can have a harmful effect on the environment.

Let’s begin with embalming. While it's common practice, it’s not actually mandatory in the United States (except in some cases where burial occurs more than 24 or 48 hours after death). Embalming essentially 'mummifies' the body by draining bodily fluids and gases, replacing the blood with a formaldehyde-based solution for preservation and sanitation.

The World Health Organization recognizes formaldehyde as a carcinogen, yet American funeral homes use enough each year to fill eight Olympic-sized swimming pools [source: Corley]. The European Union has restricted access to formaldehyde due to its cancer-causing properties.

Embalmed bodies are generally placed in steel-lined wooden caskets, which are often buried in steel or concrete vaults (vaults, like embalming, are common but not mandated by law). To meet U.S. demand, about 30 million board feet (71,000 meters­3) of wood are felled annually for caskets [source: Scientific American]. And these aren’t just pine boxes — some of this wood comes from tropical hardwoods like mahogany.

The amount of steel used for caskets and vaults in North America each year is equivalent to the amount of steel used in the Golden Gate Bridge.

And we can’t overlook the concrete — the amount used in vaults could construct a highway from San Francisco to Portland. Additionally, the production and transportation of caskets and vaults consume vast amounts of energy.

The Environmental Impact of Cremation

Burial isn't the only traditional funeral choice. Cremation, which dates back to the early Stone Age, remains a popular option today and is generally less expensive than a traditional burial. In the United States, 32 percent of the deceased are cremated. The Cremation Association of North America projects that by 2025, this figure could rise to approximately 57 percent [source: ­Lorek].

Globally, the cremation rates are even higher: 42 percent in Canada, 71 percent in Great Britain, and more than 98 percent in Japan [source: Funerals with Love].

Cremation might be less costly, but it's not necessarily a greener choice. The process still requires embalming and caskets, and the burning of the body emits harmful fossil fuels (such as dioxin, hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, sulfur dioxide, and carbon dioxide) into the air, along with toxic chemicals from embalming fluids and mercury from dental work.

Cremating a body consumes a significant amount of energy. If we could use the energy from all cremations in the U.S. during a single year, it would be enough to make 83 trips to the moon and back [source: Greensprings Natural Cemetery Preserve].

While cremation gained popularity as a cost-effective and environmentally friendly alternative, rising concerns over its pollution effects have started to overshadow that reputation. Green burials, on the other hand, are often the most affordable option, with prices ranging from nearly nothing to thousands of dollars, depending on the chosen level of elaboration.

Green Burial Practices

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "Our fear of death is like our fear that summer will be short, but when we have had our fill of fruit, our swelter of heat, we say that we have had our day."

We already carry so much dread about death itself; do we really need to add eco-anxiety on top of that? The reality is, green funerals are just as simple to arrange as their traditional counterparts.

Green funeral methods, like their conventional equivalents, offer a range of options, but all involve biodegradable materials. Instead of embalming fluid, refrigeration or dry ice—both non-toxic—are used. Sustainable woods are chosen for caskets and urns, while shrouds are crafted from natural fibers such as cotton, silk, or linen.

For those with a bolder spirit, there are options like cardboard or wicker caskets instead of traditional wooden ones. Alternatively, you can opt for an Ecopod—kayak-shaped caskets crafted from 100% biodegradable recycled newspapers. Available in various colors, including a striking Indian red with an Aztec sun design, these are priced in the few thousand-dollar range.

The environmental advantages of a green burial extend beyond simply avoiding embalming fluids, metals, tropical woods, and concrete. Green burial grounds, also known as natural cemeteries, are on the rise, with around twelve in the United States and about 200 in Great Britain [source: Corley].

Green cemeteries provide eco-friendly burial options and many help preserve and restore land. Over time, freshly dug graves gradually flatten. Grave markers are often flat stones or native trees, and some natural burial grounds even use GPS coordinates for marking plots.

The Green Burial Council

The Green Burial Council is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting eco-friendly and meaningful funeral practices. They are working to combat greenwashing in the funeral industry by establishing certification programs and standards for cemeteries, burial products, and funeral service providers.

Different types of natural burial sites are available for those seeking an eco-friendly final resting place.

The Green Burial Council has created specific categories for green cemeteries, along with guidelines for traditional cemeteries wishing to offer green burial options.

Home Burials

If you're undecided between a conventional or green burial, some states permit home burials. By following local zoning laws, you could choose to be laid to rest on your own property. Alternatively, you might opt for a more unconventional approach, such as turning your ashes into a diamond or creating a reef.

They Dig It

While more than 70 percent of Americans polled by AARP prefer green burials, the services and practices are relatively new and many funeral directors have yet to catch up.

The National Funeral Directors Association, the Green Burial Council and a few other organizations and publications are educating the funeral industry — and consumers — about how to break with tradition and go green. If your local funeral home doesn't practice green services, they can likely point you in the right direction.

Green Options Beyond Burial

If the thought of spending eternity in a box or being scattered as ashes in the wind doesn't seem appealing, there are other options for you. Behind door number three, you'll find some unconventional and innovative ways to memorialize yourself after death, whether through cremains (cremated remains) or your actual body. Let's begin with cremains.

Human remains are primarily made of carbon. And what else is made from carbon? Pencils (graphite) and diamonds. In theory, your cremains could be transformed into either. The Carbon Copies project — which is purely conceptual at the moment — imagines your ashes being turned into a lifetime's supply of 240 pencils, each engraved with your name, packed in a pencil box complete with a sharpener. As each pencil is sharpened, the shavings, which contain your ashes, stay in the box, ultimately turning it into an urn.

Not keen on becoming a box of pencils? You could send your cremains to LifeGem, a company based in Illinois, and in just 18 weeks, they will turn them into a one-carat diamond using heat and pressure. Or, if you'd prefer to be memorialized at sea, you could become part of a memorial reef ball. Eternal Reefs Inc. mixes cremains with concrete to form artificial reefs, and the company even offers this service for pets.

If cremation isn't your thing, there are some other wild and unconventional ideas to consider — some of which are just concepts and others that are already a reality.

A Swedish environmental consultant has come up with an eco-friendly alternative to traditional burial and cremation: freeze-drying a body using liquid nitrogen and ultrasound waves, then shattering it into a hygienic, soil-enriching powder. While the method has only been tested on pigs and cows so far, a 176-pound (80-kilogram) person would produce about 44 pounds (20 kilograms) of powder [source: Morgan and Miller].

Rather than opting for body breakdown, why not consider dissolving it? In a process known as alkaline hydrolysis, your remains are turned into liquid inside a steel chamber using a blend of lye, 300-degree Fahrenheit (149-degree Celsius) heat, and 60 pounds of pressure per square inch (4.2 kilogram-force per square centimeter) [source: Cheng]. This method, still not commonly used by funeral services but gaining interest, results in a thick, brown liquid that can safely be disposed of by flushing it down the drain.

Modern funeral practices are reinterpreting the phrase 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust' — with the added twist of 'liquid down the drain'.