The Centre for Natural Burial

Customers can choose an eco-exit

DON MANLEY
dmanley@news-press.com

In a case of what’s old is new, a “green” approach is now an option for patrons at one Fort Myers funeral home.

Fort Myers Memorial Gardens on Colonial Boulevard has begun offering green funerals - where bodies are buried in biodegradable wooden or wicker caskets without any embalming fluids.

It’s a burial method that mimics practices that have spanned the ages and allows the body to bio-degrade naturally, while avoiding the introduction of toxic chemicals, such as formaldehyde, into the soil.

There have been no takers since the service was started in June, said Donnell Sullivan, general manager of the 40-acre cemetery and funeral home.

“With all the focus on the environment, some people are going to want to check into it and use it,” he said. “We see it starting out slowly, but we don’t see it going away.”

“It’s just like all the other options that you offer. We’ve seen them gain momentum at various rates. Really, all we’re doing is expanding the options.”

Fort Myers Memorial Gardens was the first of two funeral homes in the state to be certified by the national nonprofit Green Burial Council, which promotes eco-friendly burial practices. The second facility is located in Tavares.

The only non-organic aspect to the burial will be the use of a cement burial vault to prevent the ground from possibly subsiding over time, Sullivan said.

He said prices will vary according to the customer’s desires, as with other funeral and burial methods. The starting price for a wooden casket is $995.

Funeral homes have long been offering what amounts to green funerals for years, often to meet the burial requirements of religious groups such as Orthodox Jews, without advertising them under that name, said Tim Hauck, a funeral director at Harvey-Engelhardt-Metz Funeral Home, which has homes in Fort Myers and Cape Coral, and a member of the Florida Funeral Directors Association board of directors.

The green funeral movement has begun to catch on, according to Joe Sehee, executive director of the New Mexico-based Green Burial Council. Fort Myers Memorial Gardens is a member of the three-year-old organization, making it one of 70 funeral homes to have joined this year, up from none in January, he added.

Sehee described the average person choosing the green funeral option as a baby boomer who may have chosen cremation in the past.

Time will tell how popular green funerals will become.

John Williams, vice president of the Florida Funeral Directors Association, said he expects demand to rise as awareness of the service grows and baby boomers make arrangements for their parents and themselves.

Eco-friendly burials have been popular in Britain for years, but industry experts say they’re starting to catch on in the U.S., where “green” cemeteries hosting natural burials have sprouted up in Florida, California, New York, South Carolina and Texas.

The market is potentially huge. U.S. funeral homes generate an estimated $11 billion in revenue annually and that figure is sure to grow as baby boomers age.

“I think that if you can offer services like that, there are people that will find it important and select it,” Williams said.