Environmentally Friendly Death Care

Environmentally friendly can come in different ideas and can be different for different people.  In the death care industry there is no shortage of those that want to capitalize on the growing green movement among societies.  In that regard, I found three articles published at different places from around the world that dealt with, in one form or another, the idea of being environmentally friendly at the time of death.

East China – According to an article in the Global Times that you can read here, on June 28 authorities in China’s Jiangxi Province have banned  casketed burials in four cities and is promoting cremation.  The rule in the four cities includes language whereby the cities should accelerate the construction of cremation installations and prohibit funerals that place a coffin in the earth.  The thought process is that earth burial both takes up too much space and earth burial, with wood caskets, destroys the planted forests.  We first wrote about this in an April 25 article that you can read here.  The Ministry of Civil Affairs in China has previously stated that it would like to see a cremation rate near 100% by the end of 2020.

India – We recently came upon an interesting article from the Times of India that you can read here.  It helps to know before reading this article that the Hindu religion suggests an immediate (within 24 hours of death) cremation, that many cremations are carried out in public view in many small communities in the country, and that the cow is a sacred animal to the Hindu religion.  With that being said, this article deals with the idea of using logs made from “cow dung” to replace firewood in the cremation process.    The article goes on to say that the communities of Nagpur, Gwalior, and Bhopal are already using the material and the community of Raipur is set to adopt the standard.

This concept will save forests as trees would no longer need to be cut down for cremation.

Canada – An article that you can read here from the Halifax Star deals with student Helen Longard who is consulting with community members, funeral directors, and others within the death care community to understand and figure out how people can be more environmentally friendly at death.

Longard believes that death is a topic that makes people uncomfortable, but it is a subject that needs to be talked about if you want to make environmentally friendly decisions.  One of the issues that she has exposed is somewhat of a Catch-22 and different sides believe the other side needs to do more about it.  For instance, some funeral directors are not against “Green Funerals” but say that they don’t carry much of that type of inventory because people don’t ask for it.  On the other hand, some consumer advocates proclaim that the consumers can’t ask for what they don’t know about and it is up to the funeral directors to promote such environmentally friendly concepts to their consumer clients.

Funeral Director Daily take:  If you didn’t believe that funeral rites, customs, and environmental concerns existing around the entire world, you will after reading these articles.  I find it fascinating that when people die it is universal that there are friends and family that want to do what is proper.  What gets in the way in many parts of the world is simply finances.  However, it appears to me that even in the parts of the world where that is common, people want to do the right thing.

 

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