Green Burials
Mary Woodson, vice president of the Pre-Posthumous Society of Ithaca, New York reported in the April/May 2003 edition of Mother Earth News that...

...... Every year in the United States the commercial funeral industry uses
..........• 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid
..........• 180,544,000 pounds of steels for caskets
..........• 5,400,000 pounds of copper for lining caskets
..........• 30, 000,000 board feet of hard woods, including tropical woods, for ............caskets
..........• 3,272,000,000 pounds of reinforced concrete for burials vaults
..........• 28,000,000 pounds of steel for vaults

Green Burial: What is it? Why is it important?

In England there are 250 green burial sites. Green burial sites are unlandscaped, naturally beautiful woodlands and meadows where the deceased are buried in random order with only some natural vegetation or stone to mark the grave. Graves in these natural burial sites are easily located through the use of global positioning devices placed at the time of burial. This enables families to locate the exact position of their loved one's grave as part of a public park.

There are fewer than half a dozen of these green burial sites in America. Why is this? Colorful Coffins believes that more can be done to stop pollution and to integrate cemeteries into public parks. Many organizations exist to preserve open space. Yet these organizations are unaware of the ways in which we can work together to integrate natural burial into existing open space. These spaces can become economical, environmentally friendly, and a mainstream alternative to traditional cemeteries.

Traditional cemeteries upset the natural landscape with the overuse of valuable open space. Huge expanses of grass are kept alive through the use of fertilizers, herbicides, and frequent watering. Expensive cement vaults, leak-proof caskets, mausoleums, polished granite tombstone markers, and even plastic flowers deplete resources and degrade the landscape. Green burial sites, on the other hand, use indigenous vegetation and are designed to eliminate the use of water, pesticides, or other unnatural materials.

Colorful Coffins has thoroughly researched every aspect of the green burial movement in America. As a member of Co-op America, we are committed to environmentally responsible production of our products including wooden caskets, cardboard coffins, willow coffins, corn "plastic" interlining, natural fiber - hemp - coffin linings, hemp ash bags, willow, gourd, ceramic, or wooden ash containers, and an entire home funeral planning service.

It is our passionate desire to establish green burial parks and to actively seek the reduction of pollution caused by the commercial funeral industry and to provide, restore, and maintain natural habitat for birds and other wild creatures.