II.

Death is a subject few of us can approach objectively. Many of us prefer to avoid it altogether. The inevitability of our own demise is tremendously depressing and not something we wish to dwell on while trying to make a living, raise a family or seek escape in the latest Netflix series.



There is also our general disgust with dead bodies. We have many euphemisms for dying that acknowledge our role in the ecological cycle ("pushing up daisies," becoming "worm food"), but for most of us, human decay is the stuff of horror films and too repulsive to contemplate.

This is why when death strikes, many of us feel most comfortable leaving it to professionals to help us navigate the aftermath, from handling the body to preparing it for burial or cremation.

"A lot of it has to do with customs and traditions. Family members are just used to doing what has been done before," said Roger Girouard, president of the Canadian College of Funeral Service in Winnipeg. "It's hard for them to break away from tradition."

The funeral business in North America is a multibillion-dollar industry, and one of its signature offerings is embalming, a process designed to slow the decomposition of the body and keep it clean for public viewing. Although the results can look surreal, embalming can give mourners closure by allowing them a last look at their loved one.

Girouard said there's a "psychological benefit" to embalming. "It allows family members to say goodbye," and can be particularly comforting "if there's guilt, if there's complicated grief."

"All of that formaldehyde going into the drinking water is just disgusting."

Western religious and cultural practices have led consumers to cling to the idea of preservation as a sign of respect for the deceased, "even as we may recognize intellectually that this isn't rational," said Cassandra Yonder, a "community death care educator" who provides guidance on home funerals in Cape Breton, N.S.

The fact that the "sales pitch" for many funeral homes is preserving a corpse in an elaborate casket doesn't make sense to Yonder. "Some burial practices are clearly based on, 'If you buy this particular type of container, your remains will last longer.' Which is crazy, because you're just turning into a gross sludge inside them."

Detractors say this longstanding practice has a number of unintended ecological costs. A 2011 study by researchers at Trent University in Peterborough, Ont., said among the known impacts humans have had on the environment, "one rarely addressed source of contamination that poses risks is the disposal of corpses."

Embalming fluid typically contains a mixture of formaldehyde, methanol, ethanol and other solvents. Formaldehyde is a known carcinogen, and according to the Funeral Consumers Alliance, more than 20 million litres of embalming fluid are used every year in the U.S. alone. Meanwhile, most standard caskets contain metal, synthetic fabrics and varnish — materials that won't biodegrade — and they're typically contained in a concrete grave liner.

Cremation has become a more popular option in the West — the Cremation Association of North America reports that in 2016, the cremation rate surpassed 50 per cent in the U.S. and 70 per cent in Canada. But cremation is also problematic from an environmental standpoint.

Cremation has a significant carbon footprint. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

Cremation has a significant carbon footprint. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

It requires intense heat (approximately 800 C), and a typical cremation uses as much natural gas as heating an average home for a week, according to the Cremation Association of North America. (Green burial activists insist cremation has an even larger carbon footprint.) That doesn't address the off-gases of burning mercury tooth fillings or metal implants, or what happens when you scatter bone ash in fields or bodies of water.



One greener option that has been gaining attention is alkaline hydrolysis — sometimes called flameless cremation — which breaks a corpse down using a liquid solution of water and potassium hydroxide (or lye), leaving only bones. It uses a fraction of the energy needed for conventional cremation but requires a lot of water and has run into some regulatory issues in the U.S. and Canada.

Given the unintended consequences of conventional burial and cremation, Farrar believes green burial is "a way to truly heal the land."



"All of that formaldehyde going into the drinking water is just disgusting," she said.

Farrar bought a plot for her husband — as well as for herself — at Cobourg Union Cemetery, which has offered green burials since October 2009. The area sits in a quiet meadow overlooking a river (and a nine-hole golf course). According to Michel Cabardos, the cemetery's superintendent, there are 48 people buried there.

By law, a grave must be at least two feet deep. "Some people would like to be buried more shallow, to be in the active layer of soil to compost quicker, but we must go at least two feet," Cabardos said. Like other green sites, the section at Cobourg Union does not have tombstones, although it will allow modest grave markers, such as a smaller rock with a name sandblasted on it. The ultimate aim is for the vegetation to grow over the burial sites.

Farrar has purchased a green burial site for her husband and herself. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

Farrar has purchased a green burial site for her husband and herself. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

This concept of returning to the soil greatly appealed to Bert Gahn, a man with terminal cancer in Niagara Falls, Ont. When he heard that a local cemetery, Fairview, was going to offer it in the fall of 2017, he told his family he had to be buried there — he was even willing to take the unusual step of putting his body on ice at a funeral home for several months to make it possible. Hearing about Gahn's interest, Fairview expedited the development of its new green site, Willow's Rest, making it possible for Gahn to be interred there a full four months before it officially opened.



Gahn's sister Barbara and brother Brian were able to convey this news to him two days before he died. "He was sitting in his hospital bed," Barbara Gahn said. "He smiled and gave a thumbs-up and said, 'So, I will be No. 1?' We said, 'You will be No. 1.'"

According to Stephen Olson, a board member of the Green Burial Society of Canada, only a handful of cemeteries across Canada provide green burial sections. There is only one dedicated green burial cemetery in Canada — a tract roughly the size of a hectare on Denman Island, just off the east coast of Vancouver Island, that opened in October 2015.

Olson, a nearly 40-year veteran of the funeral industry who oversees a green site at Royal Oak Burial Park in Victoria, said Canada is "just at the thin edge of the wedge in terms of more people wanting it, asking for it."

The global leader in this respect is Great Britain. Concerned that cremations were accounting for more than 90 per cent of body disposals, activists in Britain started promoting green burials. Rosie Inman-Cook, manager of the Natural Death Centre in Winchester, England, estimates there are now more than 300 green burial sites across Great Britain.

She said the interest in green burials is rooted in concern for the environment but also a "lack of conventional faith" and a "dislike for morbid, gloomy rows of headstones." It is estimated that about eight per cent of the more than 150,000 burials that take place in the U.K. each year are now green burials.

The green burial section at Cobourg Union Cemetery west of Kingston was one of the first of its kind in Canada. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

The green burial section at Cobourg Union Cemetery west of Kingston was one of the first of its kind in Canada. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

Because it eschews many of the materials of a more conventional funeral, a green burial is typically cheaper. Olson said the biggest challenge in Canada is making people aware that it's even an option. He said that when he describes the philosophy and process to potential customers, the benefits become obvious. "When you explain it to [people], it's almost literal. You can see the light go on. It's like, 'Wow, this makes sense. It appeals to me. It appeals to something very profound in my value system.'"



A couple of years ago, Olson received an important bit of validation from an Alberta woman who had read about his work in Victoria and asked if there were similar sites in Edmonton. "She said, 'I'm a very devout Catholic,' and she said, 'When I read [about green burials], this just resonated with me so much. This is the way they buried Christ.'"