The Centre for Natural Burial

Ecological burial offers final gesture to protect the environment

By Mike Marino, Cibola County Bureau
New Mexico is one of the most environmentally friendly states in the country. A proliferation of wind farms to generate power, enough sunshine to encourage solar power utilization, and the distribution of low-watt CFL light bulbs through the schools like the program […]

BY ALISON RAMSEY, Readers Digest Magazine
There are currently no designated natural burial cemeteries in Canada where everything put into the earth is decomposable (such as all-wood caskets), nothing contaminates the soil (no embalming fluids are used) and the ground is not groomed or laden with pesticides and herbicides. Yet you can still take steps to […]

Plan cemetery to buy, protect N.H. ranchland
By Deborah Baker, Associated Press
GALISTEO BASIN PRESERVE, N.M. — Tromping across a small, grassy meadow ringed by piñon and juniper trees and dotted with cactuses and clumps of bright-yellow flowers, Joe Sehee suddenly came to a stop. “That’s definitely a burial area,” he said, peering at the gently sloped, […]

By Gerry W. Beyer, Wills, Trusts & Estates Blog
Earlier on this blog, I discussed the “green burial” movement.  As a result, I was contacted by Mark Harris the author of a new book entitled Grave Matters: A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial.
The following is from the press release […]

by Ecoshakeflashlight
I live 3 blocks from one of the only Urban Sugar Shack…I think in Canada. I have spent many hours walking my dog, lying on logs, gazing up at the tree canopy, and … peering through the fence at the new burials in the cemetery beside the forest.
For years I’ve been wondering about contamination […]

By Nok-Noi Ricker,  Bangor Daily News
A “green” cemetery, where bodies are embalmed with nontoxic fluids and caskets are biodegradable, gained planning board approval last week and is believed to be the first in Maine, Dick Harriman, Orrington code enforcement officer, said Monday.
“As far as I know, it’s the only one,” he said.

Can a burial business still be eco-friendly if its new biodegradable caskets are brought in on cargo ships from China?
By LAUREN SMILEY, SF Weekly.com
People have doubted Six Feet Under consultant Tyler Cassity’s environmentalist credentials ever since he broke into the green burial business a few years ago and opened the Forever Fernwood cemetery in Mill […]

By Gerry W. Beyer, Wills, Trusts & Estates Blog
Green Burials are a tremendous drain on natural resources.  According to Billie Grable, Plotting a Green Burial, MSN Lifestyle: Each year, cemeteries across the United States bury an estimated 30-plus million board feet of hardwoods, 104,272 tons of steel, 2,700 tons of copper and bronze, and more […]

Burials returning to the practice of days past
Frank Fisher, Park Record
Green burials at green-burial sites have become almost as common in English communities as the corner pub and are now drawing interest in the United States.
This futuristic trend is a practice from the past. Picture a funeral where a loved one is laid to rest […]

By Rosa Prince, The UK Mirror
Tories are raking in thousands moonlighting in jobs outside Parliament, it was revealed yesterday. Of the 27 members of David Cameron’s Shadow Cabinet, 12 have outside jobs with 32 directorships between them. Among the most bizarre second jobs taken on by Cameron’s top team is the running of a “green […]