Elizabeth Collins – the self-described “renaissance woman” behind the green cemetery plan – sought to provide a burial alternative for people who object to the use of embalming fluid, sealed caskets and concrete vaults for economic, environmental or religious reasons. Along with her business partner, James Wood, Collins purchased 58 acres of wooded land for the project, and last April, the county’s Planning and Zoning Commission approved the land for use as a cemetery.

When residents of the rural, socially conservative community in central Georgia learned of the plan, however, they raised fierce objections, citing concerns about water supply contamination and “unconventional” burial practices.

Collins countered objections by explaining that the graves would be too far away from the aquifer to threaten the water supply. Advocates of green cemeteries claim that, in fact, traditional burials have a far more negative impact on the environment than natural burials.

In spite of such assurances and concessions offered by Collins, county commissioners killed the proposed cemetery project in November when they enacted a new ordinance mandating a “leak-proof casket or vault” for burials. Still, Collins says she’s not giving up, but will continue to try to win over the locals.

When Robert L. Waltrip founded the National Museum of Funeral History (NMFH) in 1992, he fulfilled a 25-year desire to build an institution to educate the public and preserve the history of the funeral industry. A 501 (c)(3) not-for-profit corporation, the NMFH is supported through fundraising efforts, private donations and admission fees.

With over 35,500 square feet of exhibition space, the NMFH is the largest educational center devoted to funeral history in the U.S. and perhaps the entire world. For those who can’t get to Houston to visit the museum in person, virtual exhibits, image collections and narrative descriptions of many artifacts are available for viewing on the NMFH website.

Funerals in Culture and History
One of NMFH’s most fascinating exhibits features the creations of Kane Quaye (1927-1992), co-author with Christine M. Kreamer of A Life Well Lived: Fantasy Coffins of Kane Quaye and pioneer of Ghana’s fantasy coffin industry. The exhibit – a permanent part of the NMFH collections – includes 12 handcrafted coffins resembling everything from a KLM airliner to a fish, each designed by Quaye to capture the essence of the deceased.

History buffs will also enjoy exhibits featuring antique hearses, a 1900s casket factory, a lesson on Civil War embalming, and a look into the elaborate funeral rites and customs surrounding the deaths of the Popes.

Mortuary Memorabilia
What’s a museum without a gift shop? The NMFH is hardly the Met, but fans of gallows humor and all things funeral can shop ‘til they drop at the NMFH gift shop. The inventory includes such offbeat merchandise as Undertaker Spring Water, model funeral cars, Spooky Town collectible figurines and silver coffin earrings.

According to Mark Harris, author of the book Grave Matters: A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial (Scribner, 2007), a typical modern cemetery is “a landfill of largely nonbiodegradable – and in some cases toxic – material.” A July 2008 article in National Geographic Magazine supports that claim with some pretty grim statistics:

Every year,

• 90,000 tons of steel,
• 1.6 million tons of concrete and
• over 800,000 gallons of embalming fluid

are buried in U.S. cemeteries. Add to that the fact that 30 million board feet of wood ­– much of it tropical hardwood ­– are used in making caskets, and you have not only a recipe for a toxic soup, but a practice that’s clearly unsustainable.

Nathan Butler of Indiana is one funeral director in the forefront of the green burial movement, responding to the growing demand for simpler, less costly and more earth-friendly funeral services. And he’s not alone. Although the green burial movement is still in its fledgling stages, 12 cemeteries and 60 funeral homes across the country have been certified as “green” ­– a trend that’s sure to continue with the aging of the Baby Boom generation.