Green Burial - People Magazine Article Review
By DePretis, AAMS Newsletter For Mortuary Service Professionals
Peoplemagazine, June 25th, 2007, Volume 67, No. 25, pages 68-71, Special Double Issue with Matthew McConaughey on the cover.
Fascinating article in this week’s People magazine titled, “Dust to Dust, Goodbye, metal casket; hello, biodegradable box: The American way of death is going green.”
Overall, the article was extremely well written. However, the one problem I had with it was the very abbreviated breakdown of a “Conventional Burial” versus a “Green Burial.”
The author only mentioned three items when she compared each burial option and I’ll list them below.
Conventional Burial
* Embalming: $400.00 - $800.00
* Metal caskets: $2,000.00 and up
* Granite headstone: $400.00 - $4,000.00
Green Burial
* Refrigeration: from $50.00 per day
* Cotton shroud, wood coffin: $50.00 - $1,000.00
* Stone or tree marker: $25.00 - $350.00
In all fairness, Eileen Finan (the article’s author) did mention in her piece that a traditional funeral can cost $8,000.00, but to look at the simplistic breakdown that compared “Conventional” with “Green,” the average person would wonder where the additional expense came from.
It seems that as an industry, we’re still purveyors of boxes and other merchandise to both the public and the media.
We’ve got to begin communicating that we provide many services and our facilities are designed to accommodate various service needs.
Remember: “Those who fail to communicate will spend their lives taking orders from those who do.”
Overall, I’d give the article a B-.