June 26, 2006
Dust to dust | Interest in green funerals is growing around the world, and Maine soon could have its first green burial ground
By Chris Churchill
You're dead, and it's time for your burial. You have not been embalmed for preservation, and no casket surrounds you. You are buried with just a shawl or sheet separating you from the earth and the moisture and the bugs. The dirt covers you, then your grave is discreetly marked with a small, flat stone in a cemetery that doubles as a nature preserve. You will quickly decompose.
You've been buried in a so-called green cemetery. Unusual as it may at first seem, green burial is a practice that's rapidly growing in popularity ˆ especially in Great Britain, where 10% of burials are now green even though the custom was almost unheard of a decade ago. But it's a choice that hasn't been available in Maine, at least not for those without private family burial grounds. That could soon change.
The Funeral Consumers Alliance of Maine, an Auburn-based nonprofit, in April decided to explore opening a green cemetery in Orrington, south of Bangor. The alliance, a volunteer group that has never operated even a traditional cemetery, is now wrestling with the thorny details of how to manage and run what would be a very unorthodox burial ground. The group is expected to vote on the proposal later this summer, meaning Maine could join South Carolina, Texas, California, Washington and New York as the only locales in the United States with green cemeteries. "It's a fairly new concept," says Ernest Marriner, who heads an FCA committee on the proposal. "But I think it's something that's going to catch on and spread."
The cemetery would occupy 14 acres along the Penobscot River, on land that would be donated by Ellen Hills, a retired Solon schoolteacher. It's land Hills loves, a beautiful mix of field and forest that slopes to a bend in the river. Her father bought the land in 1921, the year she was born. The family camped there the entire summer of 1922, making an Army tent their home. Twenty-five years later, Ellen and her husband, James, honeymooned there.
Hills, now 85, who cooks on and heats her isolated farmhouse with a wood stove, can't bear to think of leaving her acreage vulnerable to development. She looked for years, she says, for a way to permanently protect it. The town passed on her offer to use the land as a park. Conservation groups turned her down, too. Then last year Hills read an article in an AARP magazine that jolted her ˆ an account of the mounting interest in green cemeteries and burials. "That article just struck a chord," she says. "I said, 'This is what the good Lord wants me to do with this property.'"
In a typical cemetery, decomposition is treated as an enemy. First, the body is chemically preserved. Then, it's placed in a watertight, non-biodegradable casket. Lastly, the casket is placed in a cement tomb. In a green cemetery, however, embalming of the deceased is forbidden, as the chemicals used in the process are considered pollutants. (Green cemetery advocates note that traditional burials deposit almost one million gallons of formaldehyde, a possible carcinogen, in the ground each year.) The dead are buried in biodegradable caskets or shawls. Underground tombs are not allowed. Graves are scattered randomly and lightly across the landscape and typically are marked with modest stones. Land is left mostly in its natural state, a rebuke to the well-manicured, pesticide-drenched monoculture of the typical cemetery.
For some, green cemeteries are the latest land conservation tool ˆ an economically feasible way to protect land from development and urban sprawl, a means to divert a portion of the billions spent each year on funeral services to land acquisition. "This appeals to me," says Darrell Cooper, president of the Jewish Funeral Home in Portland and a FCA member, "because it serves a dual purpose ˆ both as a burial ground and as a space for recreational enjoyment."
But green cemeteries are rare here. In Great Britain, there are 200 green cemeteries. The United States has only a handful, but the Santa Fe, N.M.-based Center for Ethical Burial reports that 60 or 70 others are in consideration. "It's an emerging market," says Joe Sehee, the center's president. "But no one [is sure] that it can be done in an economically viable way, and attracting capital for these projects isn't easy right now."
Cemeteries as parkland
Green burials are in line with the burial practices of some Jews and Muslims. "The Jewish tradition is one of simplicity and natural decomposition," Cooper says. In no state is it illegal to bury without embalmment, although some require it for transporting bodies across state borders.
Still, green cemeteries are sometimes viewed suspiciously. When the nation's first green cemetery, the Ramsey Creek Preserve in Westminster, S.C., opened eight years ago, some locals were openly hostile, believing the cemetery would be a health hazard. "No one had a clue what we were talking about," says Billy Campbell, owner of Ramsey Creek. "It's taken a long time to get the message out."
Campbell, who has talked with Ellen Hills about her proposal, says he launched his cemetery because he is an ardent environmentalist alarmed by the gobbling of open spaces. He notes that many of the nation's first cemeteries, including Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Boston, were opened to serve also as parkland, and would even charge admission. But somewhere along the way, he says, cemeteries became landfills of chemicals and cement, with vast lawns that offer little support to plant and animal life.
Funeral and burial expenses at Campbell's cemetery cost about $2,300, about a third the cost of a typical funeral, the expense lowered by the simplicity of the undertaking. The cemetery has slowly grown in popularity and is now fielding calls from distant states.
Campbell says the television show "Six Feet Under," for which he consulted on the environmentally friendly burial of main character Nate Fisher, increased interest in green burial. And after almost a decade, Campbell says, the Ramsey Creek Preserve is profitable and expanding ˆ proof green cemeteries can be more than an exercise in environmental do-goodism.
Profitability wouldn't be a concern for the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Maine, because the state requires that all burial grounds here operate as nonprofits. Perhaps for that reason, new cemeteries are a rarity, despite the state's aging population: Clough Toppan, director of the division of environmental health at the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, formerly the state Bureau of Health, says he can't remember a proposal for a new cemetery coming to his department in the 25 years he's worked there.
That's despite the fact that Maine is a relatively easy place to open a cemetery. Some states require cemeteries to have endowments of up to $200,000 before opening ˆ a requirement that has thwarted some green cemetery plans. But Toppan says Maine has no endowment requirement, and the Orrington green cemetery would face few regulatory hurdles.
Though he concedes that state funeral and burial laws are quite vague, Toppan says there is nothing in state law to prevent the development of a cemetery featuring green burials ˆ contrary to the belief of some Mainers. "It would really help the public if we could develop some sort of citizens' guide for funerals," he says. "Every week we get calls on these things."
Another option for green consumers
Green cemeteries seem a logical step in a world where consumers can buy an environmentally friendly version of just about anything. And there seems to be a ready-made market for a green burial. A recent AARP poll, for example, found that nearly 38% of respondents said they would prefer to be buried in a green cemetery. And Marriner of the Funeral Consumers Alliance believes a green cemetery should be relatively easy for his group to get up and running. Maintenance costs should be low, as the part of the point is to leave the land in as natural a state as possible. It's likely the cemetery would not require a caretaker or staff.
The FCA, Marriner says, is now weighing issues such as whether to build access roads or parking lots on the land, and whether there should be a structure that holds bodies over the winter, until the ground thaws enough to allow a shovel. Some of these suggestions, however, rankle Hills, who wants the property left almost completely as is. That suggests there may be conflict between Hills' desires for the property and the alliance's needs.
"She's got veto power," Marriner notes. "She does not have to donate this land."
Whatever happens with the FCA proposal, at least part of the Orrington land will become a green cemetery. Ellen Hills will be buried there, and if her wishes are carried out, she'll be wrapped in a quilt and buried without a casket. Predicting that her remaining days are few, she hopes to secure the land's future before she goes, and that the land around her grave will remain as she knew it. "It's been totally unchanged," she says. "And there are very few places in the world where that's the case."
Hills says her decision to give the land away has not been easy. It was not, for example, popular with her son. And she says her husband had been skeptical of green burials, at least until last winter. Then, illness hit him hard and left his survival in doubt. By Ellen's telling, he looked into the eyes of his wife of six decades and said, "I don't care where I'm buried, as long as I'm alongside you."
You've been buried in a so-called green cemetery. Unusual as it may at first seem, green burial is a practice that's rapidly growing in popularity ˆ especially in Great Britain, where 10% of burials are now green even though the custom was almost unheard of a decade ago. But it's a choice that hasn't been available in Maine, at least not for those without private family burial grounds. That could soon change.
The Funeral Consumers Alliance of Maine, an Auburn-based nonprofit, in April decided to explore opening a green cemetery in Orrington, south of Bangor. The alliance, a volunteer group that has never operated even a traditional cemetery, is now wrestling with the thorny details of how to manage and run what would be a very unorthodox burial ground. The group is expected to vote on the proposal later this summer, meaning Maine could join South Carolina, Texas, California, Washington and New York as the only locales in the United States with green cemeteries. "It's a fairly new concept," says Ernest Marriner, who heads an FCA committee on the proposal. "But I think it's something that's going to catch on and spread."
The cemetery would occupy 14 acres along the Penobscot River, on land that would be donated by Ellen Hills, a retired Solon schoolteacher. It's land Hills loves, a beautiful mix of field and forest that slopes to a bend in the river. Her father bought the land in 1921, the year she was born. The family camped there the entire summer of 1922, making an Army tent their home. Twenty-five years later, Ellen and her husband, James, honeymooned there.
Hills, now 85, who cooks on and heats her isolated farmhouse with a wood stove, can't bear to think of leaving her acreage vulnerable to development. She looked for years, she says, for a way to permanently protect it. The town passed on her offer to use the land as a park. Conservation groups turned her down, too. Then last year Hills read an article in an AARP magazine that jolted her ˆ an account of the mounting interest in green cemeteries and burials. "That article just struck a chord," she says. "I said, 'This is what the good Lord wants me to do with this property.'"
In a typical cemetery, decomposition is treated as an enemy. First, the body is chemically preserved. Then, it's placed in a watertight, non-biodegradable casket. Lastly, the casket is placed in a cement tomb. In a green cemetery, however, embalming of the deceased is forbidden, as the chemicals used in the process are considered pollutants. (Green cemetery advocates note that traditional burials deposit almost one million gallons of formaldehyde, a possible carcinogen, in the ground each year.) The dead are buried in biodegradable caskets or shawls. Underground tombs are not allowed. Graves are scattered randomly and lightly across the landscape and typically are marked with modest stones. Land is left mostly in its natural state, a rebuke to the well-manicured, pesticide-drenched monoculture of the typical cemetery.
For some, green cemeteries are the latest land conservation tool ˆ an economically feasible way to protect land from development and urban sprawl, a means to divert a portion of the billions spent each year on funeral services to land acquisition. "This appeals to me," says Darrell Cooper, president of the Jewish Funeral Home in Portland and a FCA member, "because it serves a dual purpose ˆ both as a burial ground and as a space for recreational enjoyment."
But green cemeteries are rare here. In Great Britain, there are 200 green cemeteries. The United States has only a handful, but the Santa Fe, N.M.-based Center for Ethical Burial reports that 60 or 70 others are in consideration. "It's an emerging market," says Joe Sehee, the center's president. "But no one [is sure] that it can be done in an economically viable way, and attracting capital for these projects isn't easy right now."
Cemeteries as parkland
Green burials are in line with the burial practices of some Jews and Muslims. "The Jewish tradition is one of simplicity and natural decomposition," Cooper says. In no state is it illegal to bury without embalmment, although some require it for transporting bodies across state borders.
Still, green cemeteries are sometimes viewed suspiciously. When the nation's first green cemetery, the Ramsey Creek Preserve in Westminster, S.C., opened eight years ago, some locals were openly hostile, believing the cemetery would be a health hazard. "No one had a clue what we were talking about," says Billy Campbell, owner of Ramsey Creek. "It's taken a long time to get the message out."
Campbell, who has talked with Ellen Hills about her proposal, says he launched his cemetery because he is an ardent environmentalist alarmed by the gobbling of open spaces. He notes that many of the nation's first cemeteries, including Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Boston, were opened to serve also as parkland, and would even charge admission. But somewhere along the way, he says, cemeteries became landfills of chemicals and cement, with vast lawns that offer little support to plant and animal life.
Funeral and burial expenses at Campbell's cemetery cost about $2,300, about a third the cost of a typical funeral, the expense lowered by the simplicity of the undertaking. The cemetery has slowly grown in popularity and is now fielding calls from distant states.
Campbell says the television show "Six Feet Under," for which he consulted on the environmentally friendly burial of main character Nate Fisher, increased interest in green burial. And after almost a decade, Campbell says, the Ramsey Creek Preserve is profitable and expanding ˆ proof green cemeteries can be more than an exercise in environmental do-goodism.
Profitability wouldn't be a concern for the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Maine, because the state requires that all burial grounds here operate as nonprofits. Perhaps for that reason, new cemeteries are a rarity, despite the state's aging population: Clough Toppan, director of the division of environmental health at the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, formerly the state Bureau of Health, says he can't remember a proposal for a new cemetery coming to his department in the 25 years he's worked there.
That's despite the fact that Maine is a relatively easy place to open a cemetery. Some states require cemeteries to have endowments of up to $200,000 before opening ˆ a requirement that has thwarted some green cemetery plans. But Toppan says Maine has no endowment requirement, and the Orrington green cemetery would face few regulatory hurdles.
Though he concedes that state funeral and burial laws are quite vague, Toppan says there is nothing in state law to prevent the development of a cemetery featuring green burials ˆ contrary to the belief of some Mainers. "It would really help the public if we could develop some sort of citizens' guide for funerals," he says. "Every week we get calls on these things."
Another option for green consumers
Green cemeteries seem a logical step in a world where consumers can buy an environmentally friendly version of just about anything. And there seems to be a ready-made market for a green burial. A recent AARP poll, for example, found that nearly 38% of respondents said they would prefer to be buried in a green cemetery. And Marriner of the Funeral Consumers Alliance believes a green cemetery should be relatively easy for his group to get up and running. Maintenance costs should be low, as the part of the point is to leave the land in as natural a state as possible. It's likely the cemetery would not require a caretaker or staff.
The FCA, Marriner says, is now weighing issues such as whether to build access roads or parking lots on the land, and whether there should be a structure that holds bodies over the winter, until the ground thaws enough to allow a shovel. Some of these suggestions, however, rankle Hills, who wants the property left almost completely as is. That suggests there may be conflict between Hills' desires for the property and the alliance's needs.
"She's got veto power," Marriner notes. "She does not have to donate this land."
Whatever happens with the FCA proposal, at least part of the Orrington land will become a green cemetery. Ellen Hills will be buried there, and if her wishes are carried out, she'll be wrapped in a quilt and buried without a casket. Predicting that her remaining days are few, she hopes to secure the land's future before she goes, and that the land around her grave will remain as she knew it. "It's been totally unchanged," she says. "And there are very few places in the world where that's the case."
Hills says her decision to give the land away has not been easy. It was not, for example, popular with her son. And she says her husband had been skeptical of green burials, at least until last winter. Then, illness hit him hard and left his survival in doubt. By Ellen's telling, he looked into the eyes of his wife of six decades and said, "I don't care where I'm buried, as long as I'm alongside you."
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