Environmentally-friendly funerals coming to British Columbia, maybe Ontario

Michael Oliveira, THE CANADIAN PRESS
TORONTO - A burgeoning industry catering to the desire to be green - even in death - will soon offer mourners a new environmentally friendly option to bury their loved ones in British Columbia and is also working toward setting up shop in a small southern Ontario community.

Canadians once looked to cremation as a way to address the environmental concerns associated with death, and its popularity has skyrocketed in recent years.

According to the Cremation Association of North America, almost 80 per cent of those who died in British Columbia in 2004 were cremated. Victoria is considered the cremation capital of North America, where more than 90 per cent opt for their body to be burned into ash.

But the growing popularity of cremation and concerns about the tonnes of emissions that are spewed out as a result have spawned a newer, cleaner option: natural or green burials.

Green burials have been fairly common in the United Kingdom for more than a decade, and are growing in popularity in the United States, but the idea is now just coming to Canada.

After three years of study, the owners of the Royal Oak Burial Park in Victoria decided to dedicate an area of its land to green funerals and will offer the services starting in October.

A green funeral typically means the body is not subjected to chemical embalming, there are no oversized, ornate caskets made of expensive wood and metal, no grave liners or protective vaults are used, there are no fancy headstones on the grounds, and no toxic emissions are released - as is the case during cremation.

Instead, the body is wrapped in a simple shroud or placed in a biodegradable box, at most only a simple stone is placed on the ground to mark a burial spot, and the effect on the environment is minimized.

And they may also end up costing less than a traditional burial.

It took years for the Royal Oak Burial Park to launch green burials but it's clear the public is interested in the concept and ready to embrace it, said executive director Stephen Olson.

While the current plan calls for up to 250 plots to be dedicated for green burials on an area that represents less than half a per cent of the cemetery's land, other sections of the property are already being identified for future use.

"We envision this section is the first of many that will open and once we start this process it's not something we're going to stop," Olson said.

The Natural Burial Co-operative is trying to take the idea a step further in Paisley, Ont., a village about 200 kilometres northwest of Toronto, by starting a burial site that will solely focus on green funerals and resemble a conservation area more than a cemetery.

Trees would be planted at grave sites and people could pay their respects to loved ones in a serene, green environment, rather than being surrounded by rows of gloomy tombstones, said president Mike Salisbury.

"One of the key ideas of natural burial is this idea that your funeral can be a tool for landscape conservation," he said. "I think what gets people really excited is the idea that they're actually creating an environment through their purchase of a plot."

But Salisbury still has to sort out zoning issues with the village and admits the area isn't really an ideal site because it's so far from Toronto, which he thinks is a target market for green burials.

Real estate is just far too expensive in Toronto and a location outside major cities will be more feasible to at least get the green movement going, he said.

People are increasingly concerned about the wasteful nature of funerals, like the use of tropical hardwoods that are cut from forests and shipped halfway around the world just so they can be made into a casket and buried in the ground, said Janet McCausland, executive director of the Natural Burial Association, which was established in 2005 to advocate for greener funerals.

"Death has always been a topic that isn't always discussed so it's nice to see that with natural burial, people are starting to really figure out how to live a good death that reflects their lives," she said.

Cremation is still considered relatively friendly to the environment but the emissions are a serious downside, McCausland added.

Environment Canada does not have any information on the overall environmental impacts of crematoriums but its database of annual air contaminant releases does account for chemicals they release into the air each year, said spokeswoman Sujata Raisinghani.

About 32 tonnes of nitrogen oxide, 17 tonnes of carbon monoxide, six tonnes of sulphur oxide and five tonnes of particulate matter were emitted in 2005 as a result of cremations. There are also concerns about the mercury that is released into the environment when people with mercury fillings in their teeth are cremated.

According to the Cremation Association of North America, 56 per cent of the funerals in Canada in 2004 included cremation - although that figure doesn't account for the deaths in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, the Northwest Territories, Prince Edward Island, and Quebec, where statistics are unavailable.

The Canadian Press, 2008