What is Green Burial?

“A tasty snack for the earth!” is how Long Now Boston’s guest speaker Michelle Hogle Acciavatti refers to our bodies after death—an image at odds with the nutrient-depleted alkaline powder of cremains (cremated remains). Michelle is a trained neuroscientist  and thanatologist (death specialist) who advocates for feeding our juicy bodies back to the planet that fed us throughout life. At Long Now Boston’s “What is Green Burial?” program July 20, Michelle, along with Regina Harrison, director of sales at historic  Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Watertown, addressed everything you’ve ever wondered about green, or natural, burial but were afraid to ask.

After a short video about Michelle’s Vermont Forest Cemetery, which she created as the state’s first green/natural cemetery, Michelle “dug in” to the “ick factor.” In scientific terms, she explained how, unlike traditional burial that often seeks to delay decomposition  with durable caskets and embalming agents, green burial removes barriers to decomposition, returning nutrients to the environment as quickly and cleanly as possible. That means using the body’s own gut biome to start the decomposition. It also means burying  the body shallowly enough to be metabolized by mycorrhizae (the fungal networks that enable communication of nutrients to trees and plants).

Regina outlined the history of body disposition in the United States, where until the Civil War natural burial was typical. However, with dead soldiers needing to be transported long distances back to their families, the preservation technique of embalming  became commonplace, and President Lincoln’s funeral train and fancy coffin kindled interest in ornate, durable “forever” caskets. In recent years cheap tombstones from India and China have come with high fossil fuel price tags. Regina said now, increasingly  sustainable-minded customers are opting for local stone, numerical plaques, or even geolocated digital markers.

The Population Reference Bureau surmises that over seven percent of humans who have ever lived are alive today. That’s around 632 billion pounds of human bodies! Over 60% of Americans choose cremation, which, Michelle explained, is relatively cheap and space-efficient,  but sends the ecosystem’s nutritious “tasty snack” up the chimney, creating negative externalities like fossil fuel consumption, CO2, chemical impurities, and heat.

The speakers answered questions ranging from whether animals can smell green burials and try to dig at them, to the celebrity fad of mushroom shrouds (they can introduce non-native fungi that then throw off the native fungi balance), to the timelines for decomposition,  to natural organic reduction (NOR, a.k.a. accelerated human composting), and alkaline hydrolysis (water composting), to the regulatory frameworks, to relative costs, both in money and environmental toll.

The biggest takeaway was that, in the Long Now spirit of being better ancestors, what we do with our corpses will have a significant effect on the planet we leave behind. With informed planning, the decision can be active and meaningful, rather than merely  an administrative afterthought.