Visiting a 'green cemetery' made me question US funerals and burials - Business Insider

In a traditional American burial, a body is embalmed, then placed in a coffin and laid to rest in a concrete-lined grave.

Each year, it uses 4.3 million gallons of embalming fluid, 20 million board feet of hardwood, and 1.6 million tons of concrete, according to the Green Burial Council. .

Although green burial is marketed as an eco-friendly choice, its customs existed long before the environmental movement.

Green burial is, essentially, a new word for an old practice. .

Take Jewish burial traditions, for example. .

"Jewish burial traditions and customs have been green for the last 3,000 years," said Glenn Easton, executive Funeral Director at The Garden of Remembrance Memorial Park in Maryland.

At potter's fields across the country, governments bury those who are too poor to afford funeral services, or bodies that are unclaimed, in simple graves without coffins, concrete, or chemicals.

Rather than neat rows of gravestones and uniformly-trimmed fescue, the cemetery's green burial sections are dotted with native grasses and shrubs.

There are at least 287 cemeteries in the US and Canada that offer green burial services, according to New Hampshire Funeral Resources

And at some of those cemeteries, like Wooster Cemetery in Connecticut, traditional burials vastly outnumber their green counterparts

The cadre is small, but Ed Bixby, president of the Green Burial Council, which certifies green cemeteries, is hopeful

Traditional burial with embalming was standard. 

Cremation was a fraction of the price of traditional burial, and it was adopted widely.  

It surpassed traditional burial as the most popular end-of-life solution back in 2015. 

But since green burial is less expensive than traditional burial, Bixby believes it could gain traction as the "official third option." 

Traditional burials, with a vault, cost a median of $9,135 in 2019, according to the National Funeral Directors Association

By forgoing embalming ($750), a cement vault ($1495), and opting for a simple shroud or pine box over a wood casket ($3,000), or metal burial casket ($2,500), those choosing green burial can save thousands