The Centre for Natural Burial

Natural burial methods growing in popularity
By JAY LEVIN, The Pueblo Chieftain

HACKENSACK, N.J. - Genevieve Maiberger is excited about her burial.

When the time arrives, the retired schoolteacher from Teaneck, N.J., will be placed in a linen shroud and planted in the earth of a hilltop in a lovely meadow, along with the ashes of her husband, Leo, now on the bedroom dresser.

Golden daffodils will mark the grave in the spring.

‘‘This is how we all should end our existence,’’ said the 81-year-old Maiberger, who shudders at the thought of her chemically preserved body being displayed at a wake and of going to her reward in a tightly shut casket in a cemetery chockablock with engraved granite headstones.

Maiberger has chosen natural burial - an environmentally friendly throwback to how Americans bade farewell before the advent of embalming a century and a half ago.

‘‘The green burial movement is totally in its infancy,’’ said Robert Prout, a proponent of natural burial and the third-generation owner of the Prout Funeral Home in Verona, N.J., which has received awards for its use of solar power.

‘‘But I think you’ll see growth in it as baby boomers, who are just hitting 62, move into the bracket where death is staring them in the eyes.’’

With natural burial, the body is not infused with embalming fluid, which contains formaldehyde, a carcinogenic compound. The body is set in a biodegradable wooden coffin with no metal parts, or just a shroud, in a grave without a concrete vault. Several natural cemeteries - scenic preserves where pesticides and weed killers are not used - have sprung up in the last decade to accommodate such burials.

Maiberger has paid $500 for the standard 15-by-15-foot plot at the 2-year-old Greensprings Natural Cemetery, bordered by forestland in New York’s Finger Lakes region. Greensprings has interred 18 people, their graves marked by flat, natural stones and commemorative plantings.

‘‘The majority of those who’ve bought sites here have some degree of environmental consciousness,’’ said Joel Rabinowitz, the cemetery’s executive director.

‘‘They like the idea of their remains going back to the earth. They like the idea of dust to dust.’’

A green goodbye

To people in the green movement, final arrangements are an extension of how they live their lives.

‘‘The concept of being cremated and planting a tree has been a tradition within the movement for decades,’’ said Jeff Tittel, director of the Sierra Club’s New Jersey chapter.

‘‘A lot of us would like our ashes buried in a spot we love.”

But Tittel acknowledges what natural burial proponents are quick to note: Cremation, the choice of one in three Americans, consumes fuel and releases dioxin and other pollutants. It leaves less of a footprint than conventional burial, but is not totally green.

Tittel says he is now rethinking his own cremation.

That comes as no surprise to the Prius-driving, conservation-minded Prout.

‘‘I tend to think people who have opted for cremation might switch when they hear about (natural burial),’’ the funeral director said. ‘‘But I don’t think you’ll switch over someone from a mausoleum.’’

For now, Prout counts just one customer who has committed to a natural burial: the energetic Maiberger. She made arrangements and picked out her burial shroud last month, a day after putting in a full shift as a poll worker in Teaneck, N.J.

Funeral directors say they’ve sensed a bit of interest.

‘‘Some people do talk about it,’’ said Matt Leber of Volk Leber Funeral Home in Oradell, N.J. ‘‘But it hasn’t gotten to the point of them saying, ‘Arrange a green burial for me.’ ’’

For now, North Jerseyans intent on natural burial had better factor transportation into the equation. Greensprings, four hours to the north and west, is the closest natural cemetery. Others are in South Carolina, Florida, Texas and California.

Family and friends participate in a green burial for Jeff Miller, 53, at the Ramsey Creek Preserve in Westminster, S.C.

Other options

However, one needn’t buy a plot at a faraway natural cemetery to make a final environmental statement.

Among the options are choosing a plain, unvarnished pine coffin held together by dowels, instead of a metal one that never will degrade, and finding a cemetery that doesn’t require concrete burial vaults. The vaults, which envelop the caskets, prevent graves from caving in and make cemetery maintenance easier, but also slow the body’s dissolution and its return to the elements.

As for embalming, which preserves the body for viewing, no law requires it. In New Jersey, however, a body must be buried, cremated, embalmed or refrigerated within 48 hours after death. Families intent on having a viewing but avoiding embalming should ask the funeral director about the possibility of refrigeration or using dry ice.

These steps - simple wooden coffin, no burial vault, no embalming - are consistent with Jewish practices, which adhere to the biblical teaching, ‘‘Dust thou art, and to dust thou shall return.’’

‘‘In my opinion, natural burials mimic what the Jewish funeral has always been about,’’ said Martin Kasdan, general manager of Gutterman and Musicant Jewish Funeral Directors in Hackensack, N.J.

‘‘Very green, very ecological-friendly.’’

Then again, few cemeteries, Jewish or otherwise, bear even a scant resemblance to Greensprings - 100 acres of rolling meadow, with meandering trails, wildflowers and windswept grass, and not a headstone in sight.

Nancy Phillips, a 47-year-old nurse from Pittstown, N.J., can’t wait to see it for herself. She is the only New Jerseyan, besides Maiberger, who has bought a plot there.

‘‘I actually found it on the Internet,’’ Phillips said. ‘‘I’ve always disliked the idea of cremation and embalming. Even though I’d be dead and wouldn’t know the difference, I couldn’t stand the thought of my body being put through either one of those methods.

‘‘I try to be cognizant of the earth . . . and don’t want to abuse it any more than I have to. I’m very much into having my body in the ground and decaying and going back to the earth.’’

In opting for natural burial, Phillips will part ways with her husband, who is committed to a conventional burial in a family plot in New Jersey.

‘‘He’s going along with my wishes, so I take that as an affirmative,’’ Phillips said. ‘‘But I think we’ll be together for eternity, because our souls will meet.’’

Mark Harris, a Pennsylvania-based environmental writer who makes the case for ‘‘a natural way of burial’’ in his recent book ‘‘Grave Matters,’’ says it is people such as Phillips - a vegetarian and a baby boomer - who will nudge natural burial closer to the mainstream.

‘‘The generation that embraced natural childbirth and organic eating and a do-it-yourself mentality, I think, will bring that same environmental consciousness to bear on end-of-life issues,’’ Harris said.

He thinks, too, that the funeral and cemetery industries someday will offer a menu of services considered green. He says a few conventional cemeteries have begun to set aside areas for natural burials, although Judith Welshons, executive director of the New Jersey Cemetery Association, says she knows of none here that has done so.

Maiberger, meanwhile, is at peace with her decision to forgo a traditional funeral, which she deems ‘‘extravagant, not necessary and very emotional.’’

‘‘I feel better knowing I’ll be placed there,’’ she said of Greensprings. ‘‘The last thing I would want is to be in a box, a casket, with people walking past me, crying. They should rejoice. ‘Look, she’s up there in the snow; in the spring, look at the flowers. . . .’ ’’