It's not easy dying green

By Michael McKinney, Fiona Brady and Hilary Dixson

Most people continue to harm the environment even after they die. Perhaps because death is a terminal event, or perhaps because we prefer not to think about death at all, our impact on the environment after death is one of the least appreciated topics in environmental literature. As our numbers have grown and our burial rituals have become more elaborate, our impacts after death have increased dramatically.
At first glance, death seems like an ecological act, and it is for other species. An individual dies and recycles into the local ecosystem as decomposition returns nutrients to the environment, but human preoccupation with the afterlife has led people to think up ways to preserve the body.
In the United States, embalming became popular during the Civil War, when soldiers died far from home and needed to be preserved during shipment home for burial. The main ingredient used for embalming then was arsenic. Even now, burials from that era are a source of arsenic in groundwater. After 1910, arsenic was replaced by formaldehyde as the embalming compound of choice. Not as toxic as arsenic, it can still be deadly. Currently, nearly one million gallons of formaldehyde are buried in embalmed bodies each year in the United States, most of which will eventually seep into groundwater and surface waters.
In addition to groundwater pollution from embalming chemicals, another impact of burials is the casket. Americans bury 30 million board feet of hardwood, 2,700 tons of copper and bronze, and 90,000 tons of steel in caskets every year. Expensive caskets are constructed from exotic hardwoods, which contributes to the destruction of the world’s remaining old-growth forests. Less expensive caskets are constructed using chipboard, which requires toxic glues and coatings.
The vaults which enclose caskets are no less harmful to the environment. Each year 17,000 tons of copper and steel vaults and approximately 1.6 million tons of concrete are interred in American cemeteries. These coffins and vaults result in more metal being put in the ground annually than was used to make the Golden Gate Bridge and enough concrete to build a two-lane highway from New York to Detroit.
There is also the problem of space. Cemeteries occupy land, which is at a premium in urban areas. In some parts of Europe and Japan, there is little space left for cemeteries.
Burials are also done at great economic cost. Americans spend more on burial than on conservation of natural resources, fire departments, police protection or higher education. Mortuaries have the lowest bankruptcy rate of all businesses in America and a net profit exceeding $17 billion annually.
Fortunately, people are beginning to question these ludicrous environmental and economic costs. A green burial movement was pioneered in England, where the first green cemetery was opened in 1993. The primary goal of green cemeteries is to preserve the natural environment. Green burials are carried out without embalming bodies, and they use only biodegradable materials. Remains are interred in either simple cotton shrouds or coffins made of cardboard or pine. There are no manicured lawns, marble monoliths or metal vaults, and groundskeepers use no exotic plants, herbicides or pesticides.
The first green cemetery in the United States opened in 1996, when Dr. Billy Campbell and his wife Kimberly created the 32-acre Ramsey Creek Preserve in Westminster, S.C. The Campbell’s vision is a “memorial nature park” where burials are a conservation tool to fund managing the land as a nature preserve. Less than ten years after the opening of Ramsey Creek Preserve, there are now green cemeteries in nine states: California, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, South Carolina and Wisconsin.
Another alternative to traditional burial is cremation; however, this can produce air pollution. Some of the pollutants released when corpses are burned include particulates, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury. Cremation is especially toxic when the body has been embalmed or enclosed inside a coffin. Cremation is a better alternative as long as the crematorium has scrubbers on the smokestacks and only the body is burned. Cremated bodies require less space.
Another eco-friendly burial process is freeze drying. It provides the benefits of cremation without the air pollution. Also known as “promession,” freeze drying consists of dipping the body into liquid nitrogen so it becomes brittle. The body is then placed on a vibrating mat and shaken until it disintegrates into powder. Magnets are passed over the powder to remove metal objects such as teeth fillings.
The few ounces of remains produced by cremation or freeze drying can be distributed into the environment with no significant impact. Since 1990, a company called Eternal Reefs in Decatur, Ga. has put an entirely new spin on a green resting place. Eternal Reefs mixes human ashes with cement to create artificial reefs in habitats where overfishing and pollution have devastated marine life. The company has been quite successful; so far over 200 artificial reefs have been built off the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.