Green Burial - KQED QUEST

Tired of toxic embalming fluid, rainforest wood caskets and other ecologically unfriendly practices, a new generation of undertakers is attempting to green up the funeral industry with burials that go easy on the land.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• kqed
• kqedquest
• environment
• science
• green
• burial
• death
• hd
• tv
• television
• pbs

[tobeadinspired]

It would have been considerate if you had thought to include captioning for those of us who depend and/or rely on it. For us personally, we depend on it. If this seems one of those things to shrug off, I beg for you to mute *everything* that you are used to listening to and then tell me if you can understand what you've just 'watched' in its entirety. Not so easy, is it?

[KQEDondemand]

@tobeadinspired Thanks for your comment. You are absolutely right that it's a valuable tool and unfortunately, we wish we had the time and resources to caption our online content. We do provide closed captioning for when our stories air on TV, but at this time we're limited to only those stories. We have been looking into this and hopefully we'll be able to come up with a solution in the future.

[Dhbrydon]

A Funeral Director hasa tough job, consider how difficult it must be to keep a straight face at a $25000 Funeral

[Brotherwangchops]

$12,000 for a casket, That's daylight robbery.

When my Mum passed away in 2004 we built and decorated a casket for her.

As she wanted to be cremated She did not want money to be wasted on something that was ultimately just going to be burnt.

So many people who attended her funeral were touched by the fact that it was so much more personal. I still miss her.

[MaiaRikae]

@ThomasFriese

The fact that large portions of your site are hidden makes it look extremely sketchy, as does your tendency to spam green burial videos. Just sayin'.

Also, the green cemetery around here allows a natural stone and a tree, so your crusade against them seems just a little misguided.

[MaiaRikae]

@kerry5101971

There is a green cemetery in Ithaca, NY - it's called "Greensprings".

[perogie34]

@Brotherwangchops Daylight robbery or not, whatever suits a family is fine. Have some respect.

[mello27]

@Graciethemom in my relgion the earth is our mother and the sun our father teh earth is that of the goddess the goddess is all things and all things are her see the creation is the creator

[Graciethemom]

I'm a Christian so I don't like the term "Mother Earth" because I think its worshipping the creation and not the Creator. That being said, I do want to take care of the beautiful earth God has created and love the idea of green burial and home funerals. I hope this idea will catch on and become the norm!

[AkasaWolfSong]

I truly hope this becomes a movement of epic proportions to help save Mother Earth and to give honor to the bones of our loved ones, our ancestors!

Wonderful Video!

[pqwilrj]

What's the point of embalming anyway? It just delays decay. I personally don't care how fast my body decays after I die.

[brickdabrick]

Embalming is a special treatment in West-Europe, and is only done if the family wants it. We keep the body very cold and that way no bacterial infection can take place. After max 7 days every body is buried, so no need for embalming. With the right make-up and a good fridge, you can do a lot! We take care of 100.000 body's in Belgium each year, less then 1% is embalmed.