Green Funeral
A Green Funeral Can Help Save the Environment
Opponents to the traditional funeral homes view them as being more wasteful than green funeral providers citing the use of toxic chemicals such as formaldehyde in embalming fluid as unnecessary and damaging to the environment. To plan a funeral traditionally, this consumes enormous amounts of materials such as steel, concrete, copper, and bronze. The figures are in the tens of thousands of tons annually. During a burial, these elements remain in the ground indefinitely, polluting the earth.
Each year, cemeteries across the US bury approximately:
– 30 million board feet (70,000 m³) of hardwoods (caskets)
– 90,272 tons of steel (caskets)
– 14,000 tons of steel (vaults)
– 2,700 tons of copper and bronze (caskets)
– 1,636,000 tons of reinforced concrete (vaults)
– 827,060 US gallons (3,130 m³) of embalming fluid
*(Compiled from statistics by Casket and Funeral Association of America, Cremation Association of North America, Doric Inc., The Rainforest Action Network, and Mary Woodsen, Pre-Posthumous Society)
Learn More About Green Burials
Learn More About a Green Funeral