Green burial does not yet have an official definition, but generally refers to certain burial practices that limit fossil fuel usage and the number of human-made materials put into the ground. Morgan Oaks Eternal Preserve wants to help you approach death with a more natural and ecologically conservative perspective.
Green cemeteries, like Morgan Oaks Eternal Preserve, substitute wood caskets with renewable wood coffins or burial shrouds and do not line graves with concrete. They trade in meticulously kept lawns for native grasses and trees. Some green cemeteries mark graves with native stones or plant memorial trees; others don’t mark graves at all. They reject embalming as unnatural, unnecessary, and toxic. (Embalming chemicals contribute to high rates of cancer in mortuary workers.) Green cemeteries look more like nature preserves or parks than the orderly cemeteries you are used to seeing.
The nonprofit Green Burial Council (GBC) certifies cemeteries as green and keeps track of the environmental impact of conventional burial. GBC states that each year American burials put more than 4 million gallons of embalming fluid, 20 million board feet of hardwood, 81,000 tons of metal, and 1.6 million tons of concrete into the ground. Cremation, promoted by the death care industry as the greener alternative, uses the equivalent of approximately 20 gallons of gasoline per cremation and vaporizes heavy metals (from dental fillings and surgical implants) into the atmosphere. While cremation conserves physical space, green burial conserves energy.
If you have questions regarding green burial, please call us at (833) 667-4266
