Greener funeral options

From a Death & Dying Network session by Ellen Newman, September 2017

Cemeteries are provincially-legislated. The rules for burials are determined by the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services, through a delegated administrative authority named the Bereavement Authority of Ontario (BAO). It’s the BAO which administers provisions of the Funeral, Burial and Cremation Services Act (FBCSA), 2002. Lobby your MLA to broaden regulations to allow more green burial options.  

Burials vs Sprinkling

Under the law, human remains and cremated remains may only be buried in regulated cemeteries. Cremated remains may however be sprinkled on private property, with written permission if the private property is not your own. They may also be sprinkled on Crown lands and in public waterways.

Standard cemeteries

Sometimes called “lawn cemeteries” as they are maintained as lawns. Trees are discouraged as they increase the cost of maintaining the lawns.

All kinds of burial materials can be used. Embalming is allowed and the grave is lined to prevent the escape of embalming toxins. Backhoes and lifts are used to open the grave, place the casket and close the grave.

One purchases internment rights to a plot of 4x8 or 4x10 feet square, which permits a double depth sufficient for two caskets, and up to two sets of cremated remains on top.

Green burial grounds

In an effort to have the smallest carbon footprint, green burial grounds don’t use any machinery like backhoes or lowering devices, and have a care and maintenance fund to ensure no noxious weeds overtake the cemetery, making visits more comfortable. Grave locations are marked by GPS. Grave markers must be made of materials originating in the cemetery and carved. They are not necessarily permanent. Only unembalmed bodies may be buried, in shrouds made of natural materials, or in biodegradable containers such as pine boxes, constructed without the use of varnishes, glues or paints. Linings must be made of natural fibres.

Willows Rest in Niagara Falls is a green burial ground opening Fall 2017 within Fairview Cemetery with 700 lots.

Nogies Natural Burial Ground in Bobcaygeon allows for burials within a forest.

Cobourg Union Cemetery offers green burials in poplar caskets or shrouds.

The Glenwood Cemetery in Picton is a member of the Green Burial Society of Canada.

Green burials are also a strategy to increase the amount of lands under conservation as all cemeteries must have stewardship arrangements to ensure the lands won’t be developed.

The next step for green burial grounds might be to allow re-use -- that is, removal of old remains in order to allow new graves on the same land, as is the practice in many European countries.

Natural burial grounds

Natural burial grounds are distinct from green burial grounds in that they will permit the use of backhoes and lowering devices. As with green burial grounds, grave locations are marked by GPS. Similar restrictions around grave markers, unembalmed bodies, and burial materials apply

Graves typically unmarked and the grounds may be unmaintained.

Examples:

Duffin Meadows in Pickering

Meadowvale Cemetery in Brampton

(owned by the non-profit MtPleasant Group)

So you want to be a tree?

Ontario currently prevents the burial of cremated remains outside registered cemeteries and cemeteries won’t permit tree planting, so putting ashes into a hole and planting a tree is effectively illegal. Planting a tree and sprinkling ashes is fine.

Les Sentiers in Quebec allows burial in Bios Urns, as do a few cemeteries in BC.

Keep in mind that trees require more space for their root systems than the amount offered in a standard plot. Regular “lawn cemeteries” find trees increase the cost of maintenance dramatically.

Relative carbon footprints of various forms of body disposal

From highest to lowest:

***** Traditional embalming and burial

**** Cremation (takes 27L of gas per body, and while carbon dioxide is scrubbed, nitrous oxide and formaldehyde is not and escapes into the atmosphere)

*** Resomation or “water cremation” uses alkaline hydrolysis to liquefy the body: 1/10th the carbon footprint of cremation

** Green burial in a shallow grave (18” to the container) allows enough oxygen and bugs to decompose the body. A shroud has a lower footprint than a wooden box.

* Human composting may emerge as the lowest of all.

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