Green and Alternative Burials and Caskets
Green burials are becoming more common as an alternative to burial in a traditional cemetery. They are green in the sense that the body is not treated with chemicals (as occurs with the embalming process) and the land can be used for a variety of purposes. Green burials also include the possibility of placing the body along an ocean coastline as well as other options.
Global Resources
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| A Family Undertaking - 2004 PBS documentary |
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What is old is often new again. Most funerals today are part of a multimillion-dollar industry run by professionals. This increased reliance on mortuaries has alienated Americans from life's only inevitability — death. A Family Undertaking explores the growing home funeral movement by following several families in their most intimate moments as they reclaim the end of life, forgoing a typical mortuary funeral to care for their loved ones at home. Far from being a radical innovation, keeping funeral rites in the family or among friends is exactly how death was handled for most of pre-20th century America. Click here to visit the resource page. |
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| Death and Dying the Animal Way - |
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This article, dated 1/14/2013, is based on a conversation with Dr. Bernd Heinrich. An emeritus biology professor at the University of Vermont, Dr. Heinrich, 72, sees the New England forest as a living laboratory to study nature’s changes. Over the years he has translated his observations into 17 popular books on nature and the animal world, including ones on bumblebees, dung beetles, owls and geese. Click here to visit the resource page. |
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| Grave Matters - A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry To a Natural Way of Burial - by Mark Harris |
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sans coffin in the final season of Six Feet Under, Americans all across the country were starting to look outside the box when death came calling.
Grave Matters follows a dozen such families who found in “green” burial a more natural, more economic and ultimately more meaningful alternative to the tired and toxic send-off on offer at the local funeral parlor.
Eschewing chemical embalming and fancy caskets, burial vaults and costly funerals, people have embraced a range of natural options, new and old, that are redefining a better American way of death. The author examines this new green burial underground, leading you into natural cemeteries and domestic graveyards, taking you aboard boats from which ashes and memorial “reef balls” are cast into the sea. He follows a family that conducts a home funeral and delivers a loved one to the crematory, another that hires a carpenter to build a pine coffin. Click here to visit the resource page. |
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| Natural Transitions Magazine |
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NATURAL TRANSITIONS MAGAZINE is the ONLY magazine on CONSCIOUS, HOLISTIC APPROACHES TO END OF LIFE that’s also a forum for professional end-of-life caregivers and families with loved-ones facing end-of-life transition. We are a vehicle for the alternative death care Movement. Click here to visit the resource page. |
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US Resources
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| Green Burials |
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This is an organization that provides information and guidance regarding green burials. Click here to visit the resource page. |
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| National Home Funeral Alliance |
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We are a group of home funeral educators, guides and advocates all across the United States who have formed a non-profit alliance for the purpose of educating the consumer about the intrinsic value of a home funeral. We also promote education and community building among home funeral guides, green funeral advocates, and all those who support the rights of families and communities to care for their own dead. Click here to visit the resource page. |
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| Natural Transitions |
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This is a local Colorado organization dedicated to how to do your own funeral and caring for the body after death. This is a useful resource for people outside of Colorado as well. Click here to visit the resource page. |
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Colorado Resources
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| Green Caskets - Colorado |
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This is a private enterprise located in Longmont Colorado. There are many similar businesses around the country and around the world. We offer this for informational purposes only and neither Ridhwan nor the Colorado Life Service Group sponsors, recommends, or has any connection with this business. Click here to visit the resource page. |
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| Malesich and Shirey Funeral Home and Colorado Crematory |
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Offers funeral guidance, relatively inexpensive cremation, relatively inexpensive caskets which are made in the USA. Click here to visit the resource page. |
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| Natural Transitions |
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We are a NON-PROFIT RESOURCE CENTER 501(c)3 providing education on conscious, holistic, and green approaches to end of life, including family-directed home funerals.
The 2 aspects of our EDUCATIONAL WORK are our work with families and communities (presentations, consults with families and care groups, and workshops) – and OUR QUARTERLY, NATIONAL MAGAZINE. Click here to visit the resource page. |
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| Prairie Wilderness Cemetery |
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This is a local Colorado organization that is working on establishing locations where a body can be buried in a natural way with no chemicals, no cremation, all in a biodegradable way. They also provide information about burials and the difference between "green" and the more common practices. Click here to visit the resource page. |
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