How to die green: A growing movement in Indiana

From taking public transport to recycling or reducing your consumption, the prevailing advice for environmental action is all about living green. But with the high environmental impacts of modern burial methods, how to die green is a question on more and more minds.

Low carbon death practices can take a variety of forms, from choosing a biodegradable casket to being buried at a site focused on conservation. With each comes its own carbon levels, benefits and even legalities.

In the U.S., a modern, traditional burial can be a varied process, but typically it involves the same basic steps. The body will be given to a funeral director and then embalmed, placed in a coffin made of wood or metal, and then buried in a concrete vault six feet below the ground. As the years progress, the lawn will be kept pristine with careful mowing and common pesticide use.

The whole process generates 330-430 pounds of CO2, according to earthfuneral, a human composting company. It also uses 1.6 million tons of concrete and 20 million board feet of hardwood annually, the company reported.

If a person decides they would rather opt for cremation, they can skip on much of the resources and land use. But cremation comes with the cost of much higher CO2 emissions compared to a traditional burial.

On a national scale, the process is responsible for 360,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions in the U.S. every year, according to National Geographic. In Indiana, cremation makes up 49.2% of all deaths, according to the EPA’s 2020 National Emissions Inventory.

With high-emission options on either side, green burials are appealing to many as a lower-carbon solution.

In their most basic form, green burials can follow the same general flow as a traditional burial.

John Benefiel, President of Soller-Baker Funeral Home located in Greater Lafayette, said the service can still be done with a body present in a closed casket, and most of the changes come with the burial process itself.

“Green burial, from our perspective, is not a whole lot different than a non-green burial,” he said.

The main difference, he said, is the body is not embalmed, and anything going in the ground with the deceased has to be biodegradable.

This means that a cloth shroud rather than a casket can be used for burial, although readily biodegradable caskets are still an option.

In some cases, green cemeteries can be conservation sites maintained with the natural ecosystem in mind.

Warren-Prairie Sanctuary has opted for this option with their three-acre conservation burial ground next to Big Pine Creek in Indiana. The land, dubbed the cemeprairie, is conserved in partnership with Niches Land Trust, and the bodies buried there become an active part of the carefully maintained ecosystem.

Karen Atcheson, vice president at Warren Prairie Sanctuary, has been involved with the conservation of the land for over 20 years, and helped establish the cemeprarie.

“(Warren Prairie Sanctuary’s) mission is to be involved in the circle of life and the honoring of our relationship with nature,” she said.

Atcheson bought the land with a group of about twenty other people in 2002. 60 of its 100 acres were returned back to natural prairie land, and three acres were eventually put aside to become the cemeprairie.

The group, Warren Piece, had discussed making part of the land into a conservation burial ground previously, but the plans really took root and even had to be fastracked when a member became sick with cancer.

“There was a part of the property that was kind of high, and it overlooked the creek where there was this big oxbow,” Atcheson said. “We always thought ‘oh it’d be so cool to be buried up there’ — it’s such a beautiful place.”

With the group member’s passing in 2020, Warren Prairie Sanctuary, now a registered nonprofit, saw its first burial. Since then, Atcheson said, they’ve had five more and a number of cremains.

Green burials hold the clear benefit of lower carbon emissions, reduction of resource use and even land conservation. But for some, they hold value that can’t be displayed in a table or measured in a graph.

Caroline Nellis, a long-time environmental activist from Evansville Indiana, said she sees the practical benefits of a green burial, both from a carbon perspective and a cost one, but part of what drew her to the process was the involvement it offered for the family.

“I think life and death should be very intimate. It’s the family, it’s the friends,” she said.

When exploring options as she planned her own funeral arrangements, or going to memorials for others, she said something didn’t feel quite right.

“I’ve been to so many funerals — friends and family members — and I’ve never liked that feeling of disconnect,” she said. “It feels like an industry, a business, which it is.”

After hearing about a friend who participated in a green burial, she became interested in the process herself, and got in touch with Molly Welch, who is working to start her own cemetery in the area.

Going to this site, she said, contrasted greatly with her visits to established cemeteries.

“A totally different feeling,” Nellis said. “It was very secluded, surrounded by woods, birds flying around.”

Welch, who has a history working in deathcare and is now part of the Green Burial Council, echoed similar sentiments about wanting to allow friends and family to be a part of the burial process. For her, death and decomposition aren’t something to shy away from, but a natural process to embrace.

“The hardwoods, the steel and the concrete just go into the ground for really no great reason because, I’ve got to be really honest with you, people decompose anyway,” she said. “Your body is a universe, and you have all of these microbes inside of you, and it’s actually kind of a really beautiful thing.”

Now, Welch said she’s working to start her own green cemetery, to conserve the land she’s inherited and conserve it in a way that can give back to the community.

“The most sustainable thing to do would be to share it with others in a meaningful way,” she said. “We’d really like to make that a meaningful community effort.”

The entirety of the land has 280 acres of conservation forest, but Welch will be starting on a 30 acre piece her family has donated. Already, she has a conservation easement for it, and the next step is finding more people to get involved and getting the required funding.

So far, Welch said one of the biggest issues she’s run into has been obtaining the money for a Perpetual Care Fund required to operate as a cemetery. The fund essentially ensures that, in the case that there is no one to operate the cemetery, it will be maintained and protected from being dug up or built over.

In the case of Warren Prairie Sanctuary, registering as a religious organization saved them from having to procure the fund, and instead care of the land will fall to NICHES Land Trust if the current operating members can’t continue maintaining the site.

One thing that both organizations agree they haven’t been lacking, is support.

Welch said most of the people she’s spoken to have been interested in a green burial, and when Warren Prairie was going through its permitting process, Atcheson said the zoning board they had to get permissions from was very encouraging and supportive of the idea.

“We have more in common with each other than we think,” Welch said. “Particularly when it comes to meaningful goodbyes.”