Five (or More) Shades of Green is the topic of our Program on Sunday October 18, 2015. Five panelists will discuss environmental aspects of final arrangements.  How “green” are the choices?  

• Carol Coan – How green? Burial pod, cremation urn with seed, vertical burial, and other choices you may have seen advertised

• Candace Currie (Mount Auburn Cemetery) – Hybrid cemeteries; Green Burial Council certification

• Judith Lorei (Green Burial Massachusetts) – “Greening up” town cemeteries

• Heather Massey (In Loving Hands) – Natural vs. conventional deathcare; Natural Deathcare Collaborative; biodegradable coffins/shrouds

• Sandy Ward (FCAWM) – Sky burial? Burial at sea, resomation /water cremation, urban composting.

This event (October 18, 2-4pm at Rockridge Retirement Community, Northampton) is free and open to the public. See flyer for details. If you can’t come, but are curious about the topic, please keep reading…  

While preparing for this program, we have reviewed interesting resources. Here are some good examples:

 [Infographic] Environmental impact of funerals  (www.qeepr.com) 

  Sky burial in Tibet – An extensive wikipedia article, including modern problems with the ancient rite, which is supposed to be “generous” to nature, allowing birds to consumer the no-longer-needed body. (But, some vultures now get sick from medicines and hospital disinfectants on bodies.)

  Urban Death Project    [2021 update: This link will forward to Recompose.life, the new version of this project.]

  Green Burial in Massachusetts   with extensive Resource list