Natural burial

January 28, 2008

Practice popular in other states, but laws unclear in region
By Tara Fasol, The Southern

JOHNSTON CITY - Southern Illinois residents can find a green lining for their burial plans. A natural burial, according to www.greenburials.org, is a burial that aims to bring the deceased as close to nature as possible.

The person is wrapped in a cloth, perhaps a favorite blanket, and buried without any enclosure. In this way, they decompose and become part of the earth.

“There are cemeteries, that if someone wanted to be buried like that, there is nothing to keep them from being,” said Raymond Savant, funeral director and owner at Murman & Wilson Funeral Home, in Johnston City. “Most of the cemeteries in this area don’t allow that. There are some that would, but the city cemeteries require at least a concrete grave liner to be put in before a person is buried.”

Savant said he has never had the request for a natural burial but said, to his knowledge, it is not against state law.

The Illinois Burial of Dead Bodies Act states that any person not being buried in an enclosed container must be covered by at least 18 inches of earth, at the shallowest location, over the receptacle in which their remains are placed. The law does not define a receptacle.

Mike Burke, owner of Riggin-Pillatsch Funeral Home in Carterville, said he believes the state requires that there must be an “outer container” involved in burial.

“We’ll do anything the family asks us to do, as long as it is within the law,” he said. “I know it (natural burial) is becoming bigger more in California and Florida. I haven’t heard too much about it around here. Out there, they wrap the body in a shroud and put it in the ground.”

“We have what we call an immediate burial, where we remove the individual from wherever they pass away, and do our paperwork,” Savant said. “We don’t embalm them. We get the grave open and take them to the cemetery and bury them.”

Savant said, when he performs those types of burials, he still puts the bodies into an enclosed container.

“We put them into some kind of container,” he said. “It might be as cheap as a cardboard box, but we don’t just wrap them in a sheet and put them in the grave.”

The first natural cemetery was established in the United Kingdom in 1993, according to www.naturalburials.com. The site says there were more than 100 natural cemeteries in the UK by 2003.

There’s also cremation and spreading of ashes, which some advocates point out does not require an investment in real estate.

tara.fasol@thesouthern.com / 351-5824