Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

homestead - [Homestead] Natural burial in Goergia declined

homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Homestead mailing list

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: bobf <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Homestead] Natural burial in Goergia declined
  • Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 16:39:52 -0800 (PST)

I considered this option , before I decided on cremation. Personally, I
think this is a good idea. I had a friend who owned a funeral home, there is
not a lot of respect for the dead in those places. And the dead, being dead,
don't care one way or the other.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------



JANUARY 2, 2009 Green Revolution Hits Dead End In Georgia Cemetery Proposal

Ms. Collins Thought Natural Burials Were a Killer Idea; Locals Saw Grave

»By PHILIP SHISHKIN

MACON, Ga. -- Elizabeth Collins, a gardener, birdwatcher and a self-described
"renaissance woman," wanted to start a "natural" cemetery where bodies would
be buried without embalming, coffins or vaults.



She and a partner bought a plot of land here and wrote a business plan that
identified pagans, "old hippies," penny pinchers, environmentalists and
Muslims -- who traditionally bury the dead without caskets -- as their target
market. There would be room for 7,500 customers. Dead pets would be welcome,
too.

The idea didn't sit well with the living.

Many residents in this socially conservative rural patch of central Georgia
worried the cemetery would contaminate their water supply. Some also objected
in principle to unconventional burial practices.

So on Nov. 4, the Macon-Bibb County commissioners killed the cemetery plan by
voting in a new ordinance that requires a "leak-proof casket or vault" for
burials. It became one of the first legal moves against a growing brand of
environmentalism that is entering the graveyard.

Advocates of natural, or "green," cemeteries say conventional burials pollute
the earth with embalming chemicals, disturb the land and waste energy in the
production and transport of coffins and vaults.

"People who go to Whole Foods or Wild Oats are going to expect to have green
offerings in a funeral home," says Darren Crouch, whose company, Passages
International, makes biodegradable funeral supplies. Mr. Crouch says sales in
2008 were up 40% from 2007.

In the U.S., there are about 14 environmentally friendly cemeteries, up from
just one a decade ago, and a few dozen more are in development, according to
the Green Burial Council, a nonprofit that was established in 2005 and
certifies sustainable cemeteries.

"I get a lot of calls from people thinking it's a groovy alternative to
opening a bed-and-breakfast," says council director Joe Sehee.

Traditional funeral directors, who make money selling coffins and embalming
services, have been ambivalent about green burials. But some say they don't
want to miss out on the opportunity, as many in the business did when
cremation took off a generation ago. In 2007, The Director, the monthly
magazine of the National Funeral Directors Association, featured a cover
story titled "Margins lean? Consider green."




As the headline suggests, green doesn't have to mean cheap. Passages
International makes a $1,600 woven willow casket, which looks like an
oversized picnic hamper. It also sells a $300 cremation urn made of
"Himalayan rock salt" that "will dissolve within four hours when placed in
water."

'Tower of Silence'

One green-funeral enthusiast, George Russell, has founded a religion called
"Ethician" centered on the practice, and says he's buried nine bodies in his
Texas cemetery since 2003, including his mother wrapped in a blanket. He's
now raising money to build a "tower of silence" -- an elevated platform where
bodies would be left to decompose in the open with vultures hastening the
process, as is done in the Zoroastrian faith. Mr. Russell recently invited a
Zoroastrian priest from Mumbai to survey the Texas site. He says the priest
found the local vulture population suitable for the task.

In Jewish and Muslim funerals, bodies are buried either in simple wooden
coffins or wrapped in cloth, but many in the new green movement want to go
further. They favor no tombstones or bulky grave markers that would disturb
the natural environment. Visitors can find a grave's precise locale using GPS
coordinates.

State laws typically require cemeteries to maintain a certain cash reserve
for long-term upkeep of the plots. But they generally don't require the use
of caskets or vaults. In most cases, embalming, which helps preserve bodies
for viewing, isn't required by law, either.

Ms. Collins, the green-cemetery entrepreneur in Georgia, says "everything in
my life has led me to this." In her backyard in Bonaire, Ga., Ms. Collins, 56
years old, has buried her cat, hamsters and a fox that she found dead by the
side of the road. Sometimes, she goes to old cemeteries for picnics.

The silver-haired former computer programmer drives a Toyota Prius hybrid. In
an aviary behind her single-story house, she has a bowl with rotting bananas
for breeding bugs to feed her latest passion: carnivorous plants. A patch of
them, with pink tubular stalks, grows by her front door.

"I find God in nature," says Ms. Collins.

Ms. Collins says she was influenced by "The American Way of Death," Jessica
Mitford's 1963 book that portrays the funeral industry as peddling
unnecessary and overpriced goods and services to customers too much in grief
to question it.

When her son died two years ago, Ms. Collins avoided embalming, but bought an
otherwise conventional funeral because no alternative was available. She
pitched her green cemetery idea to James Wood, an old friend who manages a
Zaxby's chicken outlet in Macon. Each invested about $50,000 to buy 58 acres
on a woodsy hillside. In April 2008, the Macon-Bibb County Planning and
Zoning Commission approved use of the land for a cemetery.

Neighbors' Reaction

Down the road from the proposed burial ground, Cherrie Mittmann was stewing.
Like most of her neighbors, Ms. Mittmann, a 59-year-old housecleaner, draws
water from a well on her property. She worried that decomposing remains would
leach into the aquifer feeding the well, and that animals would dig up
unboxed bodies. Ms. Mittmann says she has no proof that either scenario would
play out, but doesn't want to wonder what her dog might be holding in its
maw. Natural-cemetery advocates say stories of animals digging up human
remains are little more than urban myths.

Neighbors are still upset that they were unsuccessful in their efforts to
stop a nearby landfill, which they say fills the air with foul smells. "We
are the rug in this corner of middle Georgia," says Ms. Mittmann, who was
also worried the cemetery would cheapen the value of her house. "Whatever you
don't want to clean up, you sweep under that rug."

Ms. Collins says the water supply would be safe because the graves are too
far away to leach into the aquifer. But to make the cemetery more acceptable,
she and Mr. Wood reduced its capacity from 7,500 bodies to 750, and decided
to give up on burying pets.

That didn't pacify opponents. Ms. Collins and Mr. Wood "were more concerned
about appeasing dead out-of-town customers than they were the living
residents," says Donnie Bryant, pastor of the Swift Creek Baptist Church in
Macon. Founded by freed slaves, the church has buried people in traditional
fashion in its own graveyard since 1868.

Ms. Collins hasn't given up yet on winning the locals over to her side. She
says her foes have an illogical fear of natural burials -- and of
out-of-towners: "This community is very insular and is not welcoming."







  • [Homestead] Natural burial in Goergia declined, bobf, 01/02/2009

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page