Green Burial In America

At some point in our lives, we all come to realize that death is a part of life. Cultural diversity provides a wide variety of lifestyles and traditions for each of the unique groups of people in our world. Within these different cultures, the rituals associated with death and burial can also be uniquely diverse. Many consider ritualistic traditions that differ from their own to be somewhat strange and often perceive them as unnatural. A prime example would be the burial rituals of the Native American people.

Dead?" AlterNet. In this article, Frankie Colmane looks into how dead bodies are treated in the United State even after Mitford's expose of the funeral industry was published. The article takes both a philosophical and scientific issue with the procedure of embalming sighting proven negative effects to human beings and the environment. Colmane shows that even though people are aware of the malfeasance and misappropriations of the funeral industry following pieces like Mitford's, very little has changed. Therefore problems that have been discussed in earlier works should not be forgotten. Rather they should be continually brought up until the issue is solved. During the 1800s, embalming became common practice because the dead family member would lie in state within the home for a period of days or weeks until it would be buried (Colmane 2010). The article shows the duplicity such as when "funeral directors were arguing forcefully against charges that their mediation between the living and the dead translated into social obstruction that barred the stricken from facing death with maturity, realism, and honest" (page 2). This article will be used to illustrate that things have not changed with funereal practices despite the publication of Mitford's essay.

The idea of human composting is almost exactly the same. Composting works when bacteria release carbon dioxide and nutrients from organic materials that help plants thrive (Ashford n. pag.). These are the same plants that provide the oxygen we need to survive and the beauty of nature that people will travel thousands of miles to witness in some cases. Human composting is the most ecologically friendly way to dispose of bodies; cremation pollutes the air with gases and chemicals such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and hydrochloric acid while bodies that are buried can take more than fifty years to decompose (Huffman n.pag., Memorial Pages n.pag.). The earth does not get the nutrients it needs from burial until the casket and body break down, and even then it receives materials that could be utilized for something other than holding bodies: “Each year, over 30 million board feet of wood, 1.6 million tons of concrete, 750,000 gallons of embalming fluid, and 90,000 tons of steel are buried underground in the United States alone,” (Herzog n.pag.). Cremation and burial are neither environmentally friendly to the earth nor economically friendly to the family left

A great many books have been written about cemeteries in Dallas, Texas. More specifically, many of these books are based on the pioneer cemeteries of Dallas's founding families. Many of Dallas's older cemeteries are not in use today for anything more than tours or an occasional local history lesson in a quiet park, and some of these cemeteries have been absorbed by large funeral companies while others are protected by private organizations. Dallas's rich history contains a variety of cemeteries that tell us how burial practices in Dallas have reflected Dallas’s societal changes.

Criticisms of American funeral practices have been made publicly aware since the 1920’s, and actually go back to ancient times in the scope of human’s ceremonies for the dead. Since the first published argument against modern funerals various authors joined the movement publishing their disparagements of customs for the deceased; that in essence contend the grandiosity and lavish displays are merely a social and psychological representation of the monetary opportunity of funerals (DeSpelder & Strickland, 2015, p. 306-307). Even further, regarding the encompassing funeral industry as exploiting grieving loved ones for their financial gains, while disregarding the actual needs of modern society (DeSpelder & Strickland, 2015, p. 307).

1. Watch “The Undertaking” where this video examines a family who works in the funeral industry as a window into American feelings on death and dying. Then, respond to the following questions: How do funeral rituals describe by the Lynch family show our cultural values about death and dying? How would a sociologist create a research question to systematically evaluate the claims that the Lynch family makes about death and dying? The funeral industry arguably exists to serve micro-level relationships, consoling individuals who have just lost others central to their social existence. How is the funeral industry connected to institutions at the community and

Ms. Gray started this project without knowing that it was an African American cemetery and started to clean it up because it was a place that she visited as a young child and was in ruins even back then. For the past year, she took it upon herself to resort the neglect cemetery by recruiting volunteers and even started a nonprofit organization to keep the effort going. Ms. Gray has become attached to the cemetery stating “I know them by their names. They’ve become my family, they were people who lived among us. They deserve respect, especially the veterans.”(Wall Street Journal) She believes that she has shown

According to (Goodman, n.d.), If a body is buried in a coffin deep underground, the decomposing process could take up to 50 years compared to bodies that are exposed to elements such as bacteria, water or air, then it will decompose a lot faster and very dramatically. No family member or stakeholder for that matter will donate their decomposed family member to her project for practice.

Changes to burial legislation gives London boroughs the authority to reuse graves in order to combat grave shortage. The practice involves placing a new or additional body in an existing grave, and is being touted as the answer to

Throughout the course, I have paid close attention to the different methods of burial with hopes of finding an option suitable for my interests when I pass in the future. At Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, I took an interest in Amy Cunningham, an advocate for green burials. She had many wonderful experiences and expert opinions on the subject matter of types of burial practices but mostly accommodated natural full-body burials. The topic of green burials interested me greatly and upon further research, I found a sect of green burials where participants would use their cremains to help facilitate the growth of a tree. These tree burials seemed like a great solution the question I had proposed to myself while also aiding in the issue of overcrowded

Throughout our lives, we have buried our dead. It is a normal process, embedded into our culture since, to what seems so to us at least, the beginning. However, we never thought to ask ourselves when actually this practice began. Also we never thought to ask if we were the only ones to entomb our dead in a ritualistic way. There is evidence of our distant cousins Homo neanderthalensis, or Neanderthal, exhibit similar burial practices that we do to this day. Neanderthal sites often have artifacts and possible different burial practices which can means that they have the ability to do ritualistic burials. They are one of the links that may play a huge role in understanding our past, and how our concept of death and the treatment of them began. The topic of burying the dead is a big subject being because it is proof of some higher thought in our ancestors. One of the major questions of human evolution is when we gained the ability to conduct more complex and advance thought. By understanding our past we can have a better understanding of our future. If we understood how our minds developed and formed we may be able to better predict where it is going or at the least understand how our brains came to be up until present day.

In a traditional American burial, bodies are embalmed with many preservatives, encased in coffins that intensively consumed natural resources, and buried in areas that can be easily forgotten. In the film, Joe Sehee, the founder of the Green Burial Council, attended a funeral-industry convention. At the convention, it became apparent that some supporters of the traditional burial is focusing on the business side and not the main purpose. In this past week reading assignment, the corpse in the GARDEN by Peter Thorsheim, talks about the closure of the London burial grounds. Given the high cost of urban land and London’s rapid population growth, even small sites could contain an enormous number of bodies.

For the past 150 years, American funerals have consisted of traditional burial practices which include interment of the entire body with the use of embalming in impenetrable wood or metal caskets with concrete vaults and liners (Harris, p.13). It involves the pumping of embalming fluid, mainly formaldehyde, into to the body to slow decay (Harker 2012). The assumption

Today the society is looking for ways to ease life and to find solutions for problems which oppress our lives and make it hard to live through. Because of many reasons, the traditional burials in this century are becoming a problem. (Prothero,2001). The fact that they cover a lot of land to build cemeteries and other things that are attached to these traditional burials is enough for us to search for a practical solution. About a century ago the term "cremation" was unknown to many people. It is believed that it began to be practiced during the early Stone Age and still exists today. Since that time cremations have been made all

     Because of the increasing education of the consumer, many may choose to bypass the funeral home as a way of lowering costs.