The greening of death, (did you know over 800,000 gallons of embalming fluid is buried every year? (link)
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zeitgeist
Nov 14 '09, 17:25
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Article:Funeral fair opens door to eco-friendly exits:/c/a/2009/11/13/DD631AI27E.DTL
Article:Funeral fair opens door to eco-friendly exits:/c/a/2009/11/13/DD631AI27E.DTL
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Funeral fair opens door to eco-friendly exits
Patricia Yollin, Special to The Chronicle
Saturday, November 14, 2009
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It's hard to always be ecologically correct - especially when you're dead.
In the Bay Area, however, it's getting easier to die green. No need for embalming fluids, mortuary wakes, fancy caskets and concrete vaults. Instead, a corpse can be propped up in bed at home to receive visitors one last time before returning to the earth, wrapped in a shroud or nestled in a biodegradable coffin.
"It's really going back to the past, when people took care of their own dead, and to a time when the cradlemaker, cabinetmaker and casketmaker were all one," Liz O'Connell-Gates said. "People would know who to go to. Now it's more anonymous. I grew up in Ireland, where life and death are so intertwined."
Last Saturday, O'Connell-Gates staged a Green Funeral Fair in Berkeley's Grace North Church. It was one-stop shopping for anyone interested in making an alternative exit in a country where more than 827,000 gallons of embalming fluid are buried in the ground every year.
Jerrigrace Lyons, a death midwife whose Sebastopol business is called Final Passages, has facilitated more than 300 home-based funerals in 14 years. "It's a movement," Lyons said.
Still, there are misconceptions to overcome. Most people assume a body will decompose rapidly and smell terrible, Lyons said. But a little dry ice can do wonders. Heather Swain of Fairfax, who runs an online memorial site, pointed to a photograph on the wall.
"This guy looks pretty good," she said. "And he's been dead 12 hours."
Swain also sells biodegradable wooden coffins. "They're super comfy," she said.
Coffin not needed
For the true minimalist, a coffin is not necessary. Esmerelda Kent, founder of Kinkaraco Green Burial Products in San Francisco, makes shrouds that range from $399 to $999. One was featured in HBO's "Six Feet Under" series. Meanwhile, her 5-ounce bottles of burial wash go for $12.
"One bottle is enough for most bodies," Kent said. "But some big people need two bottles."
A tombstone is also not essential. At Fernwood Cemetery in Mill Valley, corpses can be located by means of a radio frequency tag, according to sales manager Raymond Soudah. But stone carver Chris Stinehour prefers a more traditional approach to finding the dead.
"Stone is green," said Stinehour, as he carved the word "life" into a slab of limestone with a chisel and mallet. "What's not green about that? It's of the earth."
He was among 30 exhibitors at the fair, held in a 1914 landmark building. "I think this is the first green funeral fair anywhere, ever," said the Rev. John Mabry, pastor of Grace North. "We are a very Berkeley church."
Ann Arnold, a children's book illustrator, came up with the idea. She wanted people to see her church and hear its remarkable acoustics, and figured a wedding fair might work. Friends suggested a funeral fair instead, saying it would be less stressful - no need to deal with the mother of the bride. It evolved into a green event.
"I'd grown up with 'The American Way of Death,' and I didn't know about so many of the alternative things going on," said the 57-year-old Arnold, referring to Jessica Mitford's 1963 critique of the American funeral industry.
Jane Hillhouse of Half Moon Bay, whose Final Footprints specializes in eco-caskets and natural burials, said England and the East Coast are far ahead of California. "But I've been getting more inquiries," she said.
Memory aids
The accoutrements of death at the fair included St. Brigid's straw crosses and ceramic life masks to help people remember what the deceased looked like in livelier times.
Karen Stern was selling another memory aid: "sentimental keepsake pouches" made of recycled fabric. "If it's a dog, you might want to put in the collar," she said. "If it's a person, maybe their jewelry, eyeglasses, driver's license and false teeth."
No matter what kind of funeral it is, there's always the question of what to wear.
Funeral hats
"More people are being buried in hats," said May Henderson, owner of the Hat Library in Oakland. "I told my family, 'Do not bury me without a hat, whatever you do.' "
Seon O'Neill of Berkeley was among many fair visitors surprised by the facts and figures on display. "One thing I learned is that the energy used in cremation is the equivalent of driving a car 4,800 miles," she said.
For the cremation-minded, however, Funeria arts agency in Sonoma County offers everything from a $2,500 urn sculpture called "Their Last Love Shack," bought by a New York couple, to a $435 cast bronze scattering spoon.
"The spoon makes things easier to control," Funeria founder Maureen Lomasney said. "Everyone has an urn story, where something tragic has happened to the urn."
E-mail Patricia Yollin at [email protected].
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/14/DD631AI27E.DTL
This article appeared on page E - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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