Apr 29, 2008 1:53 pm US/Eastern
Even Death Is 'Going Green'
Green Funeral: No Embalming, No Coffin
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
It seems everything is going green these days. From hybrid cars to more energy efficient ways to live, people are starting to pay more attention to Mother Earth.
Now a new trend is spreading to make bodies more energy efficient when they die – a green funeral. Supporters say its simple and natural and should be the way our bodies are buried. No autopsy, no embalming, and no casket; the body is just placed in the ground and covered with dirt.
"Death, believe it or not... is inevitable," says George Russell, founder of the Universal Ethician Church in Texas. "Why not make it a fun experience?"
Russell and his fellow church-goers practice green burials. When a parishioner dies, they are buried exactly as they are.
"Within a matter of hours, the micro-organisms begin to feed on you, and then you become a part of the root systems of the nearby trees," Russell explains. "The trees are feeding the birds and the butterflies and the wildflowers, and you are perpetually a part of this beautiful wilderness. That's what's meant to be, that we recycle in perpetuity. That's everlasting life if there ever was."
In the Florida panhandle the owner of a 350-acre area composed of fields, creeks, ponds and woods, who has set aside 70 acres for a memorial park and green funerals, is currently awaiting approval from the Florida Board of Cemeteries.
Supporters of going green after death say today's modern funeral practices are relatively new. Embalming and metal coffins only became popular 150 years ago during the American Civil War.
For some, the idea of being interred without being embalmed in a casket is down right creepy; they'd rather sleep with the fishes.
Eternal Reefs of Georgia takes cremated remains and turns them into artificial reef balls that are sunk from Miami to Ocean City, New Jersey.
Green burials are not only Mother Nature friendly, they can also be checkbook friendly. The average price of a U.S. funeral is $5,180, according to the National Funeral Directors Association, while green funerals cost about half that — about $2,300. And the reefs cost between $15-hundred and $4,000, depending on size, plus the cost of cremation.
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