The Natural Burial Cemetery Guide

A guidebook for over 125 US cemeteries that offer green burial. Includes introductory material on green burial and photo illustrations. Detailed cemetery entries are color coded and grouped by region and state. 303 pages.

"Green or "natural" burial is a way of disposing of a dead body without formaldehyde-based embalming or environmentally unfriendly concrete burial vaults, in a shroud or biodegradable casket. It also means using minimal heavy equipment for burial and landscaping in a cemetery where the gravesite is part of a reclaimed or existing forest or meadow that is maintained with minimum intervention and supported as open green space. Graves are marked with an engraved fieldstone or no marking at all."--https://www.greenburialnaturally.org/

Honor your loved ones and the earth by choosing practical, spiritual, and eco-friendly after-death care Natural, legal, and innovative after-death care options are transforming the paradigm of the existing funeral industry, helping families and communities recover their instinctive capacity to care for a loved one after death and do so in creative and healing ways. Reimagining Death offers stories and guidance for home funeral vigils, advance after-death care directives, green burials, and conscious dying. When we bring art and beauty, meaningful ritual, and joy to ease our loss and sorrow, we are greening the gateway of death and returning home to ourselves, to the wisdom of our bodies, and to the earth.

Funeral expenses in the United States average more than $10,000. And every year conventional funerals bury millions of tons of wood, concrete, and metals, as well as millions of gallons of carcinogenic embalming fluid. There is a better way, and Elizabeth Fournier, affectionately dubbed the "Green Reaper"; walks you through it, step-by-step. She provides comprehensive and compassionate guidance, covering everything from green burial planning and home funeral basics to legal guidelines and outside-the-box options, such as burials at sea. Fournier points the way to green burial practices that consider both the environmental well-being of the planet and the economic well-being of loved ones.

How do we align our end-of-life choices with our values? In a world experiencing a climate crisis and a culture that avoids discussions about death and dying, environmentalist and educator Mallory McDuff takes readers on a journey to discover new, sustainable practices around death and dying.

Over the last fifteen years, people have been slowly waking up to the toxic and alienating practices that have come to make up the American Way of Death. Greening Death explores this awakening, arguing that beyond the greener and more cost-efficient practices of the Green Burial Movement lies an even greater promise--tying us back to the earth.

From the 1990s the British developed an interest in natural burial, also known as woodland, green, or ecological burial. Natural burial constitutes part of a long, historical legacy for British funeral innovation; from Victorian cemetery monuments and garden cemeteries through the birth and rise of cremation to the many things done with cremated remains. The book sets natural burial in the context of such creative dealing with death, grief, mourning, and the celebration of life. Themes from sociology and anthropology combine with psychological issues and theological ideas to show how human emotions take shape and help people consider their own death whilst also dealing with the death of those they love. The authors explore the variety of motivations for people to engage with natural burial and its popular appeal, using interviews with people having a relationship with one natural burial site created by the Church of England but open to all. They illustrate people's understandings of life and death in the sacred, secular and mixed worlds of modern Britain.

While the funeral is one of mankind's oldest rituals, funeral practices are not exempt from adaptation and change. Today's families are instinctively seeking more environmentally responsible body care and disposition options, more hands-on participation in the funeral period, regardless of where they live or how much money they have to spend. The self-imposed policies and standard practices espoused by the funeral industry are being challenged on every level and for every reason by every generation, from aging Baby Boomers' quest for equality, affordability, and authenticity, right on down to Millennials' pragmatic, tech savvy entrepreneurial spirit. How are funeral professionals responding to the rapidly growing, persistent demand for green products and services? Will the industry be able to pivot and produce nimbly enough to save the profession from rising any higher on the endangered careers list? What does it mean to be an innovator in the field of green funeral service from the inside? And how can greenwashing be avoided? These writers provide a different glimpse into the world of funeral service than the standard mortuary fare. Many of them have devoted their lives to envisioning a more just, eco-responsible, and honorable way to care for our dead, while others are acting as the canaries in the coal mine, adopting green practices early and parenting them as they develop. All the thought leaders in this collection have one central theme in common: finding ways to honor our commitment to ethical and compassionate funeral practices that nourish the relationships between families and providers, the profession and the public, and human beings and the Earth.