Speaker 1
Welcome to climate change at home, a podcast series produced by the daily Hampshire Gazette, Greenfield recorder, and athel Daily News. I am your host, Emerita Acharya. And on this podcast, we will look at the impacts of climate change and those active in the fight against it in the Pioneer Valley. Climate change at home is sponsored by Whelan insurance, providing protection to Pioneer Valley families and businesses since 1961. Today, I am speaking with Rebecca Frick, and Candice curry, to investigate the proliferation of green burial practices and their environmental and cultural impacts. Rebecca is the general manager at Wildwood cemetery in Amherst, Massachusetts, where green burial has been offered since 2014. And Candace is the director at green burial Massachusetts, an organization that educates and advocates for green burial all throughout the state. It would be great if you could just give me an overview of what green burial is, and how it compares to a more traditional form of burial.

Speaker 2
Okay, green burial is it's pretty simple. So there's no embalming and no cement box, which is called a vault. Those have been popular for since like the 1940s 50s, and most cemeteries require it. But with green burial, the coffin or the container, go straight into the ground. And different cemeteries have different rules. But there are a lot of different kinds of materials that you can use for container, you can be shrouded with cloth, you can have a wicker basket, you can have a simple pine box or a cardboard box. And the idea is that everything that goes in to the grave should be biodegradable.

Speaker 1
Can you give me some examples of things in like traditional burial that are not biodegradable?

Speaker 2
Well, when you say traditional, that's what's so interesting because Wildwood started in the late 1800s. And I assume at that time, most of the burials, the traditional burials were green. So it's just it's interesting that now the story has changed. But with typical burial now, that's not green. You have the embalming fluid in the body, which is to preserve it for a little bit longer.
You have the caskets have a lot of metal. And so you have chemicals and metal and, and fancy wood for coffins and caskets. There's still there's padding. There's different things that go in. In 2014, we did our first green burial for you know, after decades of requiring a vault, we had a special section that we called the green burial section. And then in 2018, when I was hired, the board was just ready to do this. So we made it possible to do green burials almost everywhere on our grounds.

Speaker 1
So, do you guys still do typical burials?

Speaker 2
Yeah, so we're called a hybrid cemetery. So we allow cremations, green burials and vault burials. And it's really a very personal decision. Nobody's judging anyone here. It's just up to the individual what they want. And often, sometimes with couples, you have one person who wants to be cremated, and one person who wants to be buried with a green burial. So you can mix.

Speaker 1
I'm curious what made you guys start doing green burials in 2014?

Speaker 2
There were people on the board who were just very interested in this because for Well, climate change is becoming more and more of an issue and a topic it has been for decades. And this was would be one way of us contributing to making, you know, less carbon, less of a carbon footprint, just your average cremation. Well, it depends on the filter system and the fuel that's used, but it typically uses about 4800 miles worth of fuel. So if you were driving, that's the equivalent.

Speaker 1
You mentioned that a lot of cemeteries don't perform that. Can you tell me why you think that might be?

Speaker 2
So with a vault?
You can you can stick a probe in the ground and feel the vault so you know exactly where the vault is. And with the green burial, you don't have that. So we are being very careful about when we do the burials we can measure exactly where we're putting the burial so that we wouldn't ever hit disturb it in the future. I think to cemeteries are afraid of the green burials, there tends to be more settling of Earth. And so we need to go back and put more Earth down. If you have the cement box, there's no settling, while there's very little settling. But with just the body in there with pine box, say, you have you have more settling than with and I think cemeteries are afraid to like, if they're going over it with machines that they would the tire would sink through, but we just do a really good job when we're back filling it, filling in the grave to make sure that it's compact. So that won't happen. We're doing half of our burials or cremation and half our full body, and of the half that are full body, half of that is green, and that number is going up.

Speaker 1
What do you see to be like the long term effects of like more cemeteries adopting green burial?

Speaker 2
Well, it'll just mean less, less things going into the ground, except for bodies. And you know, it's a very natural thing, when you're putting just the body in with biodegradable material. So we're just I think, if more and more cemeteries can get used to this idea and adapt, then it will save, you know, a lot of unnecessary waste, carbon and and materials. You know, most people don't want to think about their death. And, you know, if they're doing the pre planning, I have some, I hate to say it, but some funny conversations with people, you know, because they think, Well, why am I doing this? I don't care, I'll be dead. But I think that people who are thinking about green burial, it's just part of one, it's one more lifestyle, climate decision that you can make, it's the final one that you can make. And by choosing green burial, it's, you know, it's saving a cross country trip worth of carbon dioxide.

Speaker 1
After visiting Rebecca Wildwood cemetery, I became curious about green burial activism, and the reasons for why it's still such a contentious burial method. I decided to get in touch with Candice at green burial Massachusetts to find out more. I just curious to know more about sort of this relationship between green burial and climate change and what you perceive to be some of the long standing effects of you know, increased green burial in cemeteries.

Speaker 2
Um, yeah, climate change. It's so all encompassing mean that basically we as human beings as as mammals, we die and our body decomposes, and it goes back to the earth. So why not just let our boys go back to the earth, and green burial takes the approach of less is more the conventional cemetery right now. They changed their bylaws that said, Okay, we need to have a vault, or a grave line to go in the ground. Vault could be made out of metal or some heavy plastic or probably even concrete that's been painted. So these are non biodegradable things that are going into the ground, even if it's been a concrete grave liner. And that's going into the ground. The concrete came out of the earth, but it has a huge carbon footprint, just the manufacturing of the the political departments, the Portland cement the line, all that material being put back into the ground as a concrete box had to come out of the ground and get processed, and then it had to travel and even just the transportation from point A to point B being cemetery. It's has a huge carbon footprint. green burial Massachusetts is education and advocacy organization in Massachusetts for Massachusetts residents. Although we are known as one of the first green burial state organizations throughout the the US. There is also a green burial Council organization that's an international organization. And they certify cemeteries, they set up standards and they certify cemeteries at three different levels, a hybrid level, a natural cemetery level and a conservation level. In Massachusetts, I think Mount Auburn cemetery in Cambridge and Watertown is the only one that's technically certified as a hybrid cemetery, and however, You don't have to be certified by the green burial council to be offering green burials. So in fact, through the education work, and the residents of different towns in Massachusetts who want green burial, they've been able to get their local cemeteries to also allow for green burial. So that is everything going into the ground is biodegradable. So we now on the green burial ma.org website, there's a little database of the cemeteries that allow it or don't allow green burial and we're up to 28 cemeteries right now in the state in 2014, there were only two. So that's, we think that's been phenomenal headway.

Speaker 1
What are the kinds of things you would encourage a person listening to this to do in order to take actionable steps towards allowing green burial in their municipality?

Speaker 2
Or yeah, well first, reach out to your town cemetery. That could be maybe the town assessor or the town clerk might know something. So look at your town's website to figure out who to contact, perhaps get on your own cemetery Commission, or find a local private cemetery that you can volunteer at and do something at and say, let's do some green burials here. And what is the resistance? Where does that come from? Sometimes it might be cemetery workers also who is afraid of touching, or being close to a shrouded body? Well, okay, maybe there's a compromise here, we're not going to allow shredded bodies in our cemetery because it's too scary. But maybe what we'll do is allow a plain pine box to go into the ground. So take the small steps and live with those small steps. And you might begin to discover that there's an education process required, that the people who are doing the work will teach you something about what it takes to put a grave somebody's body into the grave, whether they're using a lowering device, or mechanical lowering device or using ropes, most cemeteries, and then I'm familiar with it in the area or using the mechanical devices. So what we also know is that as we all get more comfortable with this concept of lowering a loved one in the ground, and then filling up the grave, it's good for everybody involved, it supports the grieving and it's very cathartic to be part of that process. So get involved with the local cemetery commission or contact with people who are doing the work and talk to each other, educate each other about what it means to have a green burial. And see if you can work together to change the bylaws. And then in fact, if you have to have that town meeting, go for the town meeting and speak on behalf of green burial it's it's really important that everybody has this choice.

Speaker 1
If you'd like to learn more about green burial, you can visit Wildwood dash cemetery.com or green burial ma.org. On this season of climate change at home, I am speaking to individuals from UMass is Climate System Research Center, Youth Climate Action Now, the beaver Institute and many others. Lastly, I'd like to thank our sponsor, Whelan insurance, a local business operated exclusively by solar power. Whelan insurance has seven Evie charging stations at its King Street office in Northampton, free for public use. Until next time, I'm Amrita Acharya, and I thank you so much for tuning in.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai