Forget dying of “natural” causes. A green burial movement supported by local funeral industry groups and businesses means more British Columbians are looking into having their remains – or those of their loved ones – laid to rest in an eco-friendly manner.
“Dying, people are discovering, can be a serious source of pollution,” said Nicole Renwick, executive director of the Memorial Society of BC, “so they’re looking for better ways to make their final conscious act on this planet greener.”
While that’s meant more work for Mark Zeabin, the fourth-generation coffin builder and president of MHP Enterprises Ltd. in Crescent Valley, B.C., worries a lack of environmentally responsible burial offerings could hinder the sector’s expansion and, worse, damage the environment.
“People are looking for green funeral products and can’t find them,” he said. “The options are limited and the need right now is huge.”
To meet the growing demand, Zeabin decided to make his entire line of handmade urns and caskets 100% biodegradable, built with interlocking joints instead of metal hinges, hemp or linen lining in place of polyester and natural finishes that won’t contaminate the Earth once six feet under.
He’s even given new meaning to the term “reuse,” creating casket furnishings – sofas, shelves and end tables – that, when the time comes, can also carry your body to the great beyond.
Zeabin said his pine coffins fully decompose after six months in the ground. Cedar takes longer – about six years – but also biodegrades completely. Not only that, some caskets are designed in shapes that cut down on unnecessary waste or come lined with seeds that blossom into flowers or trees post-burial.
“This is a massive industry; people need to start waking up,” he said. “How are we going to do this in the future? We’re running out of space, and we need some options.”
Renwick, who’s fielded thousands of inquiries from people seeking more information about natural burials, confirmed that any woes associated with the often non-green sector likely have as much to do with lack of space as lack of product.
“There’s very little land left in Vancouver for burials, so a lot of people are choosing to be cremated,” she said. “But what they don’t realize is how many chemicals that process can emit into the air.”
Enter Scott McFarlane. His Vancouver-based Amherst Cremation Care Services is the first funeral-service provider in the province to receive certification from the American Green Burial Council (GBC).
McFarlane, who offers eco-friendly cremation packages free of toxic formaldehyde-based embalming, as per GBC requirements, says the fact so few graveyards are genuinely committed to green burial practices weakens the sector’s sustainability claim.
“The cemetery is the hinge point, and can be particularly problematic in the Lower Mainland,” he said. “You can get the service and the merchandise, but where are you going to put it?”
In fact, one of the only places in B.C. offering truly green burials is Royal Oak Burial Park in Victoria, home of the Woodlands – the first natural burial interment site to become operational in an urban setting in Canada.
The one-third-acre site, which includes 255 graves, requires every aspect of the green burial process be observed. Remains are prepared without embalming and buried in biodegradable caskets so they can decompose naturally and contribute to new life above ground in the form of unmanicured and indigenous groundcover, shrubs and trees. These, said Royal Oaks executive director Stephen Olsen, are living memorials in place of traditional stone or bronze markers, which are not permitted in the area.
According to Olsen, friends and family of those who are buried or whose ashes are scattered in the Woodlands find comfort in the fact that their loss in essence becomes part of the natural landscape and, in turn, supports the larger, local ecosystem.
“This is a very environmentally aware part of the world, and the concept has really resonated with people,” he said, adding that the cemetery has already identified another two-thirds of an acre for future natural burial use.