Biodegradable burial shrouds
take a variety of forms to reflect the person’s life. Shown is a shroud from
Kinkaraco of San Francisco.
Going green,
even at the end G
By Rachel Pritchett
rouped on a rocky ledge in the shadow of Washington’s Wanapum Dam, Melinda Mad-
amba and her family tossed a disk- shaped urn with her mother’s ashes into the Columbia River. As they watched, it traveled the currents of blue churning waters and disintegrated, releasing the precious ashes to their downstream journey. Madamba’s mother had been an
engineer at the dam, with her office window just across the river. “It was so neat,” said Madamba, a member of First Lutheran Church, Poulsbo, Wash. A small but growing population of baby boomers is discovering a range of environmentally sensitive options for saying goodbye to loved ones beyond cremation. This group shuns
Pritchett is The Lutheran’s Southwestern Washington Synod correspondent and a newspa- per reporter in Bremerton, Wash.
30 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
embalming and metal caskets, and says no to concrete vaults that stick around forever. Instead, they choose options with a smaller carbon foot- print—biodegradable urns like Mad- amba’s, wooden caskets sans metal handles, and boxes made of sea grass, bamboo or willow. Some even bury their loved ones just in shrouds. “[Boomers have] changed every cultural milestone they’ve met, and death is the last frontier,” said Joe Sehee, executive director of the Green Burial Council. The 6-year-old council (
www.greenburialcouncil. org) is among the nation’s strongest advocates for green options in the $11 billion death-care industry. It also sets green guidelines for cem- eteries and funeral home operators. Also at the forefront are indepen- dent funeral operators with flexibility to react to boomers’ wishes, Sehee said. Take Dave Cook of Cook Fam- ily Funeral Home, Bainbridge Island,
In Washington, some question formaldehyde, metal caskets as way to go for funerals
Wash., who said bio-urns are a common choice among his clients. It’s become routine for ferry boats that serve the island to pause so a family on an upper deck can toss a bio-urn into Puget Sound. Bio-urns are just one expres- sion of the greening of death care. Tucked in among the traditional caskets at the Cook funeral home is one of the so-called basket caskets. “It’s kind of a conversation piece when people come in and see it,” Cook said. Muslin lines the inte- rior, and a small muslin pillow and shroud come with it. Families can use basket caskets
in crematoriums where they release fewer carbon emissions than metal counterparts, or in cemeteries if allowed. Instead of traditional burial vaults, liners are placed over the caskets to keep the ground above level, but not under so the body and casket can sink into decomposition.
Only about 15 cemeteries in the U.S. allow families to forego caskets altogether by placing their loved ones in conservation or natu- ral burying grounds just in shrouds. Glendale Memorial Nature Pre- serve in the Florida Panhandle and Forever Fernwood Natural Burial Ground near San Francisco are two.
Some environmentally con- scious are even saying no to embalming with formaldehyde, as well as to burial vaults. No state requires either one, Sehee said, something only half of Americans know. “Consumers are often mis- led that it’s state law,” he said. Sehee estimates that three- quarters of cemetery overseers in the U.S. are unwilling to allow burials without vaults. But forgo- ing concrete vaults could have a huge impact on the environment, he said. Each year, the funeral
PHOTO FROM KINKARACO–GREEN BURIAL PRODUCTS/USED WITH PERMISSION
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