Natural burial
Natural burial is the interment of the body of a dead person in the soil or a body of water in a manner that does not inhibit decomposition but allows the body to be naturally recycled. It is an alternative to burial methods and funerary customs.
The body may be prepared without chemical preservatives or disinfectants, such as embalming fluid, which are designed to inhibit the microbial decomposers that break the body down. It may be buried in a biodegradable coffin, casket, or shroud. The grave does not use a burial vault or outer burial container that would prevent the body's contact with soil. The grave should be shallow enough to allow microbial activity similar to that found in composting.
Natural burial grounds have been used throughout human history and are used in many countries.
History
Although natural burials present themselves as a relatively modern concept in Western societies, they have been practiced for many years in different cultures out of "religious obligation, necessity, or tradition". For example, many Muslims perform natural burial out of a duty to their religion. Others, like those in African countries, bury naturally because they cannot afford the cost of embalming. In China, the Cultural Revolution saw the popularity of burial rise over cremation. Truly natural burials also include the burial of bodies within tree roots in the Amazon rainforest in Peru, and burying the deceased in the Tanzanian bush. According to Nature, the earliest known human burial dates back to the Middle Stone Age of a toddler in what is now Kenya.Natural burial has been practiced for thousands of years, but has been interrupted in modern times by new methods such as vaults, liners, embalming, and mausoleums that mitigate the decomposition process. In the late 19th century Sir Francis Seymour Hayden proposed "earth to earth burial" in a pamphlet of the same name, as an alternative to both cremation and the slow putrefaction of encased corpses.
Types
The Green Burial Council identifies three types of natural burial cemeteries:- Hybrid burial grounds
- Natural burial grounds
- Conservation burial grounds
Memorialization
Natural burial grounds employ a variety of methods of memorialization. Families that bury their loved ones in nature preserves can record the GPS coordinates of the location where they are buried, without using physical markers. Some natural burial sites use flat wooden plaques, or a name written on a natural rock. Many families plant trees, or other native plants near the grave to provide a living memorial.Environmental considerations
While natural burials tend to prevent the environmental damage done by conventional techniques, some practitioners go further by using burial fees to acquire land to restore native habitat and save endangered species. Such land management techniques are called "conservation burials". In addition to restoration ecology, and habitat conservation projects, others have proposed alternative natural uses of the land such as sustainable agriculture and permaculture, to maintain the burial area in perpetuity. Landscaping methods may accelerate or slow down the decomposition rate of bodies. Natural burials sometimes do not use any machinery or heavy equipment for digging the grave site. Instead, the grave sites may be dug by hand.Environmental issues with conventional burials
Each year, 22,500 cemeteries across the United States bury approximately:- 70,000 m3 of hardwood caskets
- 82,000 kg of steel caskets
- 12,700 kg of steel vaults
- 2,500 kg of copper and bronze caskets
- 1,484,000 kg of reinforced concrete vaults
- 3,200 m3 of embalming fluid, which usually includes formaldehyde.
Coffins and caskets are made from a variety of materials, most of them not biodegradable; 80–85% of the caskets sold for burial in North America in 2006 were made of stamped steel. Solid wood and particle board coffins with hardwood veneers account for 10–15% of sales, and fibreglass and alternative materials, such as woven fiber, make up the rest. In Australia, 85–90% of coffins are solid wood and particle board. Most traditional caskets in the UK are made from chipboard covered in a thin veneer. Handles are usually plastic designed to look like brass. Chipboard requires glue to stick the wood particles together. Some glues that are used, such as those that contain formaldehyde, are feared to cause pollution when they are burned during cremation or when degrading in the ground. However, not all engineered wood products are produced using formaldehyde glues. Caskets and coffins are often manufactured using exotic and even endangered species of wood, and are designed to prevent decomposition. While there are generally no restrictions on the type of coffin used, most sites encourage the use of environmentally friendly coffins made from materials like cane, bamboo, wicker or fiberboard. A weight bearing shroud is another option.
Religious practices
Jewish law forbids embalming for traditional burials, which it considers to be desecration of the body. The body is ritually washed by select members of the Jewish community, wrapped in either a linen or muslin sheet, and placed in an all-wood casket. The casket must not have any metal in it, and it often has holes in the bottom to ensure that it and the cadaver rapidly decompose and return to the earth. Burial vaults are not used unless required by the cemetery. In Israel, Jews are buried without a casket, in just the shroud.Islamic law instructs that the deceased be washed and buried with only a wrapping of white cloth made of natural fibers. The cloth is used to preserve the dead person's dignity and to emphasize simplicity. The cloth is sometimes perfumed, but in a natural burial, no chemical preservatives or embalming fluid are used, nor is there a burial vault, coffin or casket. Islamic law does not require any of these.
Applications
Due to their potential for being repurposed for public use, natural burial sites can offer many valuable services that modern methods of burial do not, such as "recreation, human health and restoration, stormwater management, microclimate regulation, aesthetics". Issues like the scarcity and high expense of real estate could possibly be mitigated by reinventing existing spaces like cemeteries, instead of developing on new land. For example, instead of replacing modern cemeteries with commercial or residential development, they can continue to function as green space for public parks. However, this concept of repurposing graveyards into not only more eco-friendly burial sites but areas of recreation causes controversy between those whose sole intent is to grieve and those who believe the land could be used more productively.Alternative methods of burial
Alternatives to ground burials include burial in a coral reef, sky burial, burial at sea, hybrid cemeteries and human composting.Coral reefs
Cremated remains are sometimes placed inside concrete coral reef balls, and ceremoniously placed in the sea as part of a reef ecosystem. These balls are used to repair damage to coral reefs, and to provide new habitat for fish and other sea life.Sky burial
In some parts of Tibet and Mongolia, a person's remains are fed to vultures in a burial known as sky burial. This is seen as being good to the environment as well as good karma in Buddhism.Burial at sea
Burial at sea or in another large body of natural water is seen as a natural burial if done in a way that benefits the environment and without formaldehyde. Some organizations specialize in natural burial at sea, allowing the body to decompose or be consumed by animals. The EPA has issued a general permit under the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act that authorizes the burial of non-cremated human remains at sea. Human remains can be buried at sea as an alternate form of a natural burial under certain guidelines as per The United States Coast Guard, The United States Navy, or any civil authority charged with the responsibility for making such arrangements.Hybrid
A hybrid cemetery is a conventional cemetery that offers the essential aspects of natural burial, either throughout the cemetery or in a designated section. Hybrid cemeteries can earn a certification that does not require them to use vaults. This allows for the use of any eco-friendly, biodegradable burial container such as a shroud or a soft wood casket.Tree pod burial
An increasing number of companies, such as Capsula Mundi, The Living Urn, and Coeio, are offering tree pod burials where the corpse is first stored in an egg-shaped pod made of biodegradable and compostable materials. The pod is then deposited into the ground, where a tree is planted above it. Over the years, the body and pod decompose and enrich the soil with nutrients for the tree to intake and grow. Some architectural prototypes employing tree pod burials envision a forest park of the deceased, where mourning loved ones could take a stroll and honor the dead, as opposed to a more artificially constructed graveyard.While less environmentally friendly, an alternative design of the pod offers to contain ashes instead of the body.