Burial Choices ~ Green and Natural Burials
by Loretta Jaunzarins
Welcome to this first part of a two part series on green/natural burials.
Last year the City of Hamilton opened its first natural burial section at Mount Hamilton Cemetery on Rymal Road, a traditional cemetery, creating a hybrid cemetery. There is lots of information on their website about natural/green burial at that site and staff are available to discuss options. The city also offers a cremation scattering garden at the same site.
Natural or green burials are of great interest and becoming more popular these days as we try and minimize our final footprint. For the most part ‘green’ and ‘natural’ are synonymous but there are some differences depending on where you live.
Green Burial
Green burial means that the body is not preserved/embalmed with any chemicals, like formaldehyde. The body is then placed in a biodegradable container, like a wicker casket, and placed in the earth to biodegrade. Burials take place in green burial sites instead of traditional cemeteries. Green burials can involve different methods such as tree pod burials where the body of the deceased is placed in a fetal position in a biodegradable container shaped like an egg and then the pod is buried with a tree sapling to nourish the tree as it grows.
Natural Burial
A natural burial is similar in that the body is not preserved, and only biodegradable materials are used. Natural burials can differ from green burials in that the grave is often dug by hand and no machinery is used. While green burials tend to focus more on a biodegradable casket, with a natural burial the deceased is often just wrapped with a shroud made of biodegradable fabric such as linen or cotton and placed in the ground. With either of these types of burials no individual markers are allowed but the name of your loved one can be placed on a communal marker. Biodegradable urns can be buried at natural or green burial sites.
What is available to you will depend on where you live and what the municipality has to offer and how they define ‘natural’ and ‘green’. Regardless, both green and natural burials embrace the idea of returning the body to the earth and supporting the surrounding ecosystem instead of harming it with embalming chemicals, varnished caskets, non-biodegradable fabrics such as clothing and casket liners, metal pieces and cement vaults.
There are more green, natural and hybrid cemeteries becoming available every year in Ontario and across Canada.
For more information on green burials contact the Green Burial Society of Canada or the Natural Burial Association for more information on natural burials.
In my next blog post I will talk about biodegradable burial containers.
