Sunday April 20, 2008

Green funerals with cardboard coffins and bamboo urns make for eco-exits

LONDON (AP): It's no longer enough to live a greener life -- now people are being encouraged to be environmentally friendly when they leave the Earth too.

Cardboard coffins, shell-shaped urns and fireworks that can be packed with people's ashes were met by smiles at the Natural Death Center's Green Funeral Exhibition Saturday in London.

Britain has been a world leader in eco-friendly funerals for years and is a source of green burial products and ideas for countries like the United States, where the idea is just starting to catch on.

Green funerals attempt to be eco-friendly in every stage of the burial. Clothes are sewn from natural fibers. Coffins are constructed from biodegradable materials, and the burial plot itself is in an untamed natural setting. The idea is to leave as little mark on the Earth as possible.

"People are trying to think about what's the best way to live and with that, what's the best way to die,'' said Roslyn Cassidy, a funeral director for Green Endings, which provides eco-friendly funerals.

People know funerals can be expensive, Cassidy said. "So they want to spend that money greenly.''

However, funeral directors say there are misconceptions about the costs of a green funeral. Some people expect them to be as cheap as a do-it-yourself project, while others expect price hikes similar to what grocers charge for fair trade food.

"It's about choice, not price,'' said Fran Hall, marketing director for Epping Forest Burial Park.

Green funerals can be as opulent and expensive -- or as low key and cheap -- as any traditional funeral. It comes down to how extravagant or simple an approach mourners take.

For a concept aimed at saving the Earth by going back to basics, an eco-funeral can be more complicated than it sounds. The Natural Death Center has a handbook for green funerals and has set nonbinding environmental targets for cemeteries.

"You can take any funeral and make it greener,'' said Michael Jarvis, the center's director.

In a green funeral, bodies are not embalmed and are dressed in pure fiber clothes. Green campaigners say refrigeration or dry ice is a better alternative to formaldehyde, which can seep into the water system.

Biodegradable coffins also differ from the traditional mahogany. Coffins on display included one made from wicker and decorated with flowers.

One visitor, Linda McDowall, admired another coffin bundled in a beige, leaf-adorned felt shroud, saying it looked comfortable. "Cozy and warm are not words you associate with death,'' said McDowall, a 48-year-old German and French translator.

Cardboard coffins -- which are as thick as their wooden counterparts -- can be decorated by family and biodegrade within three months.

"The trouble is, they are a bit ungainly to use,'' said Oakfield Wood burial ground director Oliver Peacock. "They're not terribly easy to handle and if it's wet, they don't look their best either.''

Particular care is taken in how coffins are buried at eco-friendly graveyards like Oakfield Wood, Peacock said.

Oakfield Wood was a pasture when it opened in 1995. It is now speckled with more than 1,600 trees. Plots are marked by a tree and a wooden plaque.

Marble tombstones are frowned upon for marking green graves. Jeremy Smite, a funeral director at Green Endings, said shipping and mining produces carbon and that marble is not a renewable resource.

For cremations -- which account for 70 percent of British funerals -- a person's ashes and the remains of the eco-friendly coffin are placed in bamboo, glass or ceramic urns.

New legislation in Britain requires reductions in the mercury content of plastics and treatments used in coffins starting in 2010. All biodegradable coffins meet the new standards.

Cassidy described small details as being important for green funerals, such as using smaller cars instead of limousines in funeral processions.

"What people are wanting is to know that they're doing the best they can both for their loved ones and for the environment,'' Cassidy said.

The exhibition Saturday brought funeral directors, coffin sellers and curious customers together for a different take on a morbid and often uncomfortable issue.

McDowall said she was surprised by how happy people seemed at an event about confronting death.

"I could imagine using this for myself,'' McDowall said. "I feel comfortable with this idea. But I think most of the people who come to this event are already thinking about death.''

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