After Moira Cathleen Delaney was diagnosed with an aggressive form of intestinal cancer, her thoughts eventually turned to her eventual death and what she wanted done with her body. Delaney’s love of gardening, birds and the forest inspired her decision to be transformed into soil — literally — through a process known as natural organic reduction.
When she died in October at age 57, her family sprinkled some of her remains under her favorite backyard tree and gave some remains to her closest friends and relatives in glass jars to keep or plant things with.
“For her, it was a very comforting thought to be able to return to the earth in that kind of way, and to have her final physical act contributing to the life process,” said Marcos Moliné, her son.
Interest in body disposal options that are better for the planet has risen in recent years, according to research commissioned by the National Funeral Directors Association. Researchers and industry experts said people worry about how conventional death practices such as embalming, fire cremation and casket and vault burials affect the climate, environment and people’s health. Others simply want their final resting place to be in their cherished outdoors.
“How we die does lead to a substantial impact on not only the people around us and our communities, but the earth itself,” said Mark Shelvock, a psychotherapist and lecturer at Western University in Canada, who co-wrote a paper on green death practices.
What’s legal and available varies by country, state and province. Here are some common options.
Conventional body disposal practices
Embalming, the process of slowing down a body’s decomposition, involves known carcinogens like formaldehyde that get injected into veins to preserve the body for viewing and services. The Environmental Protection Agency determined the gas poses an “unreasonable risk” to public health, with people who work in settings where it’s used at greatest risk. Research has shown the likelihood of the gas contaminating soil and groundwater is low.
Fire cremation is the most popular option in the U.S., preferred by nearly two-thirds of the respondents to the funeral directors association. The energy for burning is often derived from fossil fuels. The Cremation Association of North America estimates the energy used in a typical cremation is equivalent to powering a 2,000-square-foot (186-square-meter) home for a week.
Materials used for caskets and vaults are often made of wood, metal or concrete that require mining or tree cutting and huge amounts of energy to produce. Concrete, for instance, is responsible for roughly 8% of global carbon dioxide emissions and 2% in the U.S., most of which come from producing and processing the cement to make it.
Cemeteries also take up space and require maintenance, which involves energy and resources for mowing, watering or fertilizing.
“There’s all of this management that goes into conventional cemeteries that looks very much like a golf course,” said Samuel Perry, a funeral director and president of the Green Burial Council, a global nonprofit that guides green burial standards and certification.
Natural burials
At Prairie Creek Conservation Cemetery in Florida, natural burials are combined with land conservation. Graves are dug by hand and bodies are only buried in caskets or shrouds made of biodegradable materials like bamboo or cotton. Embalmed bodies and vaults aren’t allowed, and to bury cremated remains, they must be in biodegradable, chemical-free urns.
The idea is to let the body decompose naturally.
It’s an idea Scott King was skeptical of when his mother, Linda, said she wanted to be buried this way. But the more he researched, the more he understood the beauty of its simplicity. She was buried in a meadow at Prairie Creek cemetery in October last year, and recently, King buried his brother Kenneth there, too, close to her.
“Through death, life begets life,” said King. “She really liked that idea, too, that she can, in her passing, help give life to something else. That was very important to her. My brother, I think, sort of went along with the ride.”
The cemetery partners with a land trust to manage, restore and protect the land from development. They remove invasive species and plant native ones, and perform prescribed burns.
The benefits, said executive director Heather Grove, reach further. There’s more biodiversity and wildlife now, and “if you want to talk about carbon capturing and all that, conservation is key to sequester,” she said.
According to the Green Burial Council, a green burial sequesters about 25 pounds (11.34 kilograms) of carbon.
Elena Slominski, a researcher who’s studied eco-friendly disposal options, said a conservation burial “is by far the best thing you can do because it’s actually, technically a carbon sink. It actually restores ecological habitat and protects the land.”
But it’s not a good option where space is at a premium, and some argue it’s not practical because it takes up space.
Natural organic reduction — turning bodies into soil
Earth Funeral is a company specializing in natural organic reduction, also known as terramation and human composting. The body remains in a sealed vessel for 30 to 45 days with mulch, wood chips and flowers. Inside, microorganisms break down the body into soil in a natural process that generates heat to reach temperatures of 131 F (55 C) or higher — enough to kill germs.
“What we are fundamentally doing is using science and technology to accelerate a completely natural process” using renewable energy sources, said Tom Harries, the company’s co-founder and CEO. Some of the soil is given to loved ones, and the rest is donated to conservation or reforestation projects.
Fourteen U.S. states allow such a process, and 15 others have introduced bills to make it legal, according to Earth Funeral. Experts said it’s a good option if you live in a city where burial space could be limited and more expensive.
Alkaline hydrolysis — using water for cremation
Alkaline hydrolysis is also supposed to mimic and speed up natural decomposition. At the Colorado-based water cremation company Be a Tree, bodies are put into a vessel with 95% water and 5% potassium hydroxide that is then heated to about 200 F (93 C) for about 18 hours.
Skeletal remains are air-dried, processed and returned to loved ones as powder in an urn or shaped as stones. Most families keep some of the liquid for houseplants or gardening, but most of it goes to land conservation partners to be used as fertilizer, said founder and CEO Emily Nelson. Other companies discharge the residual liquid with other wastewater.
This process uses about 90% less energy than fire cremation.
Perry, with the Green Burial Council, said he’s often asked whether the way a person chooses to be disposed of after death makes much of a difference in their environmental footprint.
“The quick and dirty answer is no, I don’t think this one thing is going to change a whole lot. But it’s always about changing industries. And as an industry, if we do better, we are making a bigger impact.”
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Daniel Kozin contributed to this report from Gainesville, Fla.
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