Formaldehyde-Free Funeral With Cardboard Coffin Shows Industry Goes Green

[Purveyor]

By Jim Efstathiou Jr.

April 14 (Bloomberg) -- Respect for the environment these days doesn’t stop at death’s door.

Toxic chemicals, metal caskets and concrete vaults, traditional tools of the burial trade, are giving way to options for going green even in death. The Parks and Wildlife Department in Texas plans to become the first government agency in the U.S. to let families lay cremated remains in protected forests for a fee to help the state buy more land for conservation.

Texas will cater to people concerned about environmental impacts of the “death-care industry,” Ted Hollingsworth, the agency’s director of land conservation, said in an interview.

“If tens of thousands of people want to take advantage of this opportunity annually, it could easily double the rate at which we’re adding lands to state parks,” Hollingsworth said.

The $12 billion-a-year U.S. funeral industry will need a makeover to meet new demand for back-to-Earth burials and low- energy, low-emission cremations. Customers are now curious about products from biodegradable embalming fluid to caskets made of recycled cardboard, said Joe Sehee, executive director of the Green Burial Council of Santa Fe, New Mexico, a promoter of green-funeral standards.

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[MADem]

1. Anyone with a stomach for that sort of work would be well to head off on this trajectory.

It's surely the future.

[blogslut]

2. cool

Maybe I won't have to have my ashes compressed into diamonds after all. No formaldehyde, a cardboard box - that's the closest to the way I want my body disposed of.

[havocmom]

3. Problem will be the fee thing. Too many will use that as excuse to dump on private lands near parks.

Widow woman I know has problems with trespassers who come onto her ranch land to deposit remains. It really bothers her.

People, just because a house may be miles away, the land could still belong to someone, so don't dump granny without getting landowner's permission. Land ownership maps usually available at FSA/NRCS field offices in rural counties

edited for typo

[Ian David]

4. I want to be converted to BioDiesel. n/t

[hunter]

5. If dead people were not so contaminated by toxic drugs and man made chemicals...

... we could feed them to California Condors.

That would be a lot more interesting than a cardboard box.

[kestrel91316]

6. I either want to be cremated, and my ashes buried in my garden

or someplace suitable, or I want to be buried in a linen shroud inside a wicker casket (unembalmed) in a wooded cemetery.

No way in hell I'm going to be pickled and preserved. That's an abomination.

[rsmith6621]

7. As Long As Green Doesnt Mean...More Xpensive

That is what I fear the trade off will be....more bucks for the industry..

.....if it is cardboard and no F-Hyde the cost should be lower especially if it means no vault either...but leave it up to a company like Dignity too figure out a way to recoup their cost and still charge $6000.00