Before Ruth Laskowski died of skin cancer, she asked to be buried as naturally as possible.
She wanted an environmentally-friendly “green” burial that skips a conventional vault and metal casket, which don’t biodegrade. Most importantly, she wanted to avoid embalming chemicals that include formaldehyde.
“She didn’t want her body filled with a chemical that would preserve her,” said her husband, Erwin. “She just wanted to be in the ground and for us to plant flowers and say a Hail Mary.”
Her husband fulfilled that wish when she died in August 2021 at age 75, burying her in a newly opened green burial section of a Chicago-area cemetery a few miles from their Oak Lawn home.
The environmental impact of traditional funerals
As traditional burials increasingly fall out of favor — 60% of interments are now cremations — more people are considering green funerals than at any time in recent memory. Sixty percent of Americans are interested in exploring green funeral options, according to the National Funeral Directors Association’s 2023 consumer survey.
The environmental toll of conventional burials is not insignificant. A typical 10-acre cemetery contains enough casket wood to build more than 40 homes, nearly 1,000 tons of casket steel, 20,000 tons of vault concrete and enough embalming fluid to fill a backyard swimming pool, according to the 2008 book “Grave Matters” by Mark Harris.
Green burial is a catchall term for many new far-out interment options, including human composting and aquamation, also called water cremation or alkaline hydrolysis.
But for many, green burial simply means placing a body directly into the ground, according to Sam Perry, a mortuary science professor at Southern Illinois University. He is also president of the Green Burial Council, a nonprofit that sets burial standards.
Green burial, also called natural burial, means skipping many of the environmentally unfriendly practices of modern burial culture and returning to the type of burial practiced for centuries by our ancestors.
Before the age of modern burial practices, people were simply placed into the ground wrapped in cloth or inside a wooden box. Jewish and Muslim traditions still follow rules that closely align with natural burials.
“It’s interesting, because the majority of the world buries this way, and our ancestors did, but it’s an ironic modern problem that we’re concerned now with being environmentally friendly,” Perry said.
Many people still don’t know about natural burials, which Perry pins on a lack of education and access.
“It’s still a very new and grassroots movement,” he said.
How a ‘green’ funeral home approaches the burial process
Marion Friel has been performing natural burials for 14 years as the funeral director of Green Burials of Love Ltd. She rents space in the Colonial-Wojciechowski Funeral Home, 6250 N. Milwaukee Ave., and another location in Niles.
Green burial is “completely different, and yet it’s somewhat the same,” she said.
Most of her clients request direct burials, without traditional visitation. In those cases, the deceased are washed with soap and water at the funeral home. They are placed in a simple wooden or wicker casket, without metal or nonbiodegradable materials. Bodies are taken to a cemetery for typical graveside services.
Some people incorporate parts of a green burial, such as a special casket, but use a conventional burial plot they had already purchased that requires a concrete vault. In those cases, Friel recommends her clients use a burial vault with holes to allow decomposition.
“If you want a greener burial, it’s possible,” Friel said.
For people who want a traditional visitation, Friel offers a type of embalming without formaldehyde. She refrigerates a body if the time between death and burial is more than two days, she said.
She directs her clients, mostly from the North Side or suburbs, to be buried at Windridge Memorial Park in Cary or Willow Lawn Memorial Park in Vernon Hills.
What to consider when planning an eco-friendly burial
Ruth Laskowski was buried in a section of Lithuanian National Cemetery in southwest suburban Justice, which has had green burials for five years. Natural burial plots don’t allow large headstones, only flat engraved stones. Pesticides are not used either.
But it’s been a slow trickle of takers. Just four natural burials have been performed in that time, cemetery manager Leonas Putrius said.
“A lot of people are not familiar with this,” he said.
Many people seeking green burials are fulfilling the wish of a deceased family member, Putrius said. Although the cemetery historically has been for people of Lithuanian heritage, the people who call with interest in green burials are not, he said.
Perry, the mortuary science professor, said a common misconception is that green burials cost less than traditional ones. Sometimes they can cost more.
“I think it’s a farce to think this is a cheap way to go because it depends on what you choose” to buy, Perry said.
At Lithuanian National Cemetery, green burials cost about $4,200, about the same as traditional burials, Putrius said. Natural burials require more maintenance because, without a vault, the plot depresses over time and needs to be leveled, he said.
Friel, the funeral director, charges $3,650 for her basic services that don’t include an optional $2,000 wicker casket and $700 charge for a hearse ride to the cemetery.
Combined, the cemetery and funeral home costs total more than $10,000, and that doesn’t include a visitation.
The median cost of a conventional American funeral was $7,848 in 2021, according to the National Funeral Directors Association. The group did not publish a median green burial cost.
Despite its rising popularity, very few cemeteries advertise natural burials. Seven cemeteries in Illinois allow natural burials, according to a comprehensive list cataloged by the group New Hampshire Funeral Resources, Education & Advocacy.
Most green cemeteries are considered “hybrid” when a section is devoted to natural burials.
There are also fully green “conservation cemeteries” that go above and beyond to keep land in its natural state. This is the most eco-friendly type of cemetery certified by the Green Burial Council.
Conservation cemeteries appeared first in the United Kingdom in the 1990s and soon made their way to the United States, Perry said. The first conservation cemetery in the U.S. was Ramsey Creek Preserve, opened in 1998, in Westminster, South Carolina.
Casper Creek Natural Cemetery, in Elizabeth, is one of Chicago’s closest conservation cemeteries. Although the cemetery is near the Iowa border and overlooks the Mississippi River, about a quarter of its business comes from people in the Chicago area, according to operations manager Andra Olney-Larson.
The cemetery borders a nature preserve and guarantees its members the land will remain undisturbed by development. Some people seek out this cemetery because it allows them to die in a way that represents the environmental values they had during life, Olney-Larson said.
“I feel we empower those choices in death,” she said. “People come from hundreds of miles away to be buried here.”
The funeral industry’s shift to ‘go green’
The funeral industry initially hesitated to adopt green burial practices, but that’s changed in recent years, according to Perry. Years ago, the industry had the same hesitation regarding cremation, which is now the most common interment method.
Many people turned to cremations because of their convenience. Remains can be easily transported long distances, and services can be held long after death, two points that conform closely to our modern world where children move great distances from their parents, Perry said.
That poses a challenge for the adoption of green burials. But some people are turning to natural burials for the added sense of autonomy, Perry said.
“There’s more opportunity for people to be involved in the death,” he said.
For Laskowski, who buried his wife at the Lithuanian National Cemetery, holding a green funeral wasn’t as difficult as he thought it would be. Laskowski said he, too, wants to be buried naturally.
“It’s not that it’s complicated. It’s just that there’s extra rules that have to be followed,” he said. “After that, it’s pretty much a normal funeral.”
