Creating a more environmentally friendly resting place

Creating an Eco-Friendly Final Resting Place

Your final resting place can be your last opportunity to make an environmentally conscious choice. While decisions about end-of-life arrangements are deeply personal and influenced by factors such as budget, personal preferences, and cultural considerations, there are several eco-friendly options to consider for a greener funeral plan.

Innovations in Cremation

Approximately 70% of New Zealanders choose cremation, a practice significant in various religions. However, traditional cremation is highly carbon-intensive, consuming fuel and emitting pollutants. A more sustainable method, known as water cremation or alkaline hydrolysis, is being practiced in some countries, including parts of Australia, the USA, and Canada. Advocates at Water Cremation Aotearoa are hopeful that this method will soon be legalized in New Zealand. This process involves dissolving the body in a stainless steel machine using a solution of hydrogen peroxide and water, leaving only porous bones and wastewater. The bones can be crushed and returned to the family, and the wastewater can be used to nourish forests or sent to treatment plants if permitted by law. Water cremation uses seven to ten times less energy than conventional burial or cremation and releases no toxic emissions. With cemeteries running out of space and draft updates to the Burial and Cremation Act 1964 due later this year, this eco-friendly option may soon be available.

Natural Burials

Natural or green burials are gaining popularity in New Zealand, with an increasing number of cemeteries offering this option. This concept is not new; various cultures, including Māori, have practiced it throughout history. For a natural burial, coffins or shrouds, along with any clothing or personal belongings, must be biodegradable. Embalming fluid is not used to prevent soil contamination. Bodies are buried about 800mm below the surface to facilitate faster decomposition. There are no concrete vaults or headstones; instead, a simple wooden marker and a native tree are planted on the site. Eventually, the gravesites will return to native bush.

For more information, visit naturalburials.co.nz.

Alternatives to Embalming

Embalming is not essential unless you need to delay a funeral or have other specific circumstances. Avoiding embalming can eliminate the use of chemicals, including formaldehyde, which is classified as a carcinogen. Instead of embalming, some funeral homes use air conditioning and refrigeration. If the person is at home, ice packs, dry ice, or cooling blankets can be used. The Natural Funeral Company in Auckland, for example, can care for a body naturally for a week or more by bathing it with essential oils and restorative creams and cooling it with ice.

Simple Shrouds and Coffins

Biodegradable coffin options are made from materials such as cardboard, untreated wood, willow, flax, and wool, using water-based glues and natural linings and handles. Outside the Box Caskets, for instance, makes cardboard coffins locally with jute handles. These can be personalized, with the option for loved ones to draw on the coffin. Cotton, silk, linen, or woolen shrouds, sheets, or blankets are another option. Shrouds are used in Judaism and Islam, which have long favored more natural burial methods, with embalming and cremation prohibited. Harakeke (flax) mats have been used by Māori for wrapping tūpāpaku in the past, and some funeral companies and individuals have been promoting a return to this practice, as well as reverting to more natural ways of caring for the dead that eliminate the need for embalming.

Donating to Science

Another option, if it aligns with your personal or religious beliefs, is to donate your body to science. The University of Auckland and the University of Otago accept bodies for research, teaching, and scientific studies. Bodies still need to be embalmed and eventually cremated, however. Organ and skin donation is another option, and the body can still be buried or cremated afterward.

Returning to Earth

While not yet available in New Zealand, human composting is legal in a few US states. Recompose in Seattle was the first company in the world to begin composting bodies in a special facility last year. The body is placed in a vessel with wood chips, alfalfa, straw, and other plant material for 30 days, breaking down into soil that can be given to families or donated to a forest. This process uses one-eighth of the energy of cremation.