Living Green and Dying Green
Every year, cemeteries across the nation bury TONS of beautifully crafted hardwood, steel, copper, and bronze caskets, and 1.6 million tons of reinforced concrete vaults.
Many people are now thinking, that's ridiculous.
Expensive and ridiculous.
Funeral Director David Techner, of the Ira Kaufman Chapel in Southfield, says there's a new trend on the funeral front in Michigan and across the country:
more people are interested in..going green.
What does that mean?
It means caskets that are biodegradable. No metal. No nails. No varnish.
The body is not embalmed. There's no make-up on the body.
There is no cremation that's belching smoke into the air.
The body is buried in a special cemetery where there are no granite markers.
People are purchasing caskets made of bamboo and wicker.
Other people are choosing to be buried in simple cloth shrouds.
Mt. Carmel Cemetery is Wyandotte is a local cemetery handling green burials.
Techner says that although funerals of this kind have been a Jewish tradition for thousands of years, these kinds of services are now becoming a cross cultural trend.
For a complete list of "green" burial products and services, check out
