After you die, you’re usually not environmentally friendly. Here’s an alternative.
In her 76 years, the retired family doctor has hiked 125 miles of the Appalachian trial. She has sailed and ridden horses; camped and kayaked.
Four years ago, after she'd complained of blurred vision out of one eye, Wilson was told she had a rare and incurable form of Stage 4 lung cancer. The cancer, she also was told, had spread to her eyes, bones and liver.
It was then that Wilson decided her exit from this world would be in keeping with her values -- causing as little harm to the earth as possible.
"I drive an electric car. I eat organic. That's the kind of person I am," said Wilson, who alternates between living in
"When I heard they embalm you with formaldehyde, and put you in a cement vault, and then they bury you in the ground on this manicured lawn with all kinds of toxic herbicides and weed killers -- I decided I couldn't be buried in that kind of situation."
Wilson is part of a growing world of people who are shunning conventional burials and even cremation -- disillusioned by the environmental impacts -- in favor of burials that are super earth-friendly, low-tech and cheaper.
For Wilson, the plan is simple: A hole will be dug. Her body will be placed in the hole. And the earth will be put back over her body.
Nature will take her from there.
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Burial -- at least, the kind of burial still favored by nearly half of all Americans -- is something of an environmental disaster.
The non-profit
Cremation, in turn, once viewed as the greener choice, increasingly is being shunned for similar reasons. The gases used (and created) by the process are carbon intensive, and the mercury that becomes air when dental fillings are burned is nothing less than toxic.
Enter so-called green burials. Some are as simple as Wilson's bury-the-body-in-a-hand-dug-hole plan. Others include simple pine boxes. Almost all involve using no machinery or chemicals or heat.
"As baby boomers are aging up, it's going to become more and more popular," said
"I think there are a lot of families with environmental bents to their lives, people who consider themselves eco-conscious and know cremation isn't the best thing for the planet," Doughty said. "Cremation is not the magic pill for an environmentally friendly death."
Because more people like Wilson are choosing a more environmentally friendly farewell, the
"It's really the people that chose this (form of burial) that drive it," said
Still, for now, choices in
When Wilson looked for a green cemetery locally she found few options and eventually bought a plot in
Before running Steelmantown, in
"I wasn't looking at it as a business opportunity. I was looking at it as 'someone needs to be responsible for this place.' I was looking for a new life for it," Bixby said.
"I learned about the natural burial movement myself," he added. "I wasn't an environmentalist, but of course I care about the environment. I wasn't a cemeterian, but of course I care about doing the right thing.
"I fit the bill and didn't know it."
Though the cost of real estate in
In October Gov.
In July, Bixby acquired a green burial site with ocean views in
Morgan has been in land management for nearly 30 years but was led to green funerals in 2016. He now has three properties in various stages of the permitting process in
"You're taking these landscapes that are very large and putting a permanent easement on (them)," Morgan said. "You're helping preserve that landscape from being converted into something else."
It's a concept that's increasingly resonating with Baby Boomers and Generation Xers, and is appealing to people across political lines.
"One of my favorite things about the green burial population is it brings together strange bedfellows," Doughty said. "Hippies and libertarians love it."
"Traditionally, my whole family has been embalmed and buried in a cemetery," Mendez said. "I didn't want the ground to have any of the chemicals involved in the embalming. Why would I preserve my body after it's gone?"
The couple isn't especially environmentally conscious, or spend much of their time outdoors. But they value environmental preservation.
"We're not over the top," Mendez said, "but this was important."
For Wilson, part of the appeal of her final resting place in
"It makes me feel satisfied," Wilson said. "I'm less anxious."
"I don't have to go down a path I don't believe in."
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