Have you ever wondered about the environmental impact of traditional burial and embalming and how funerals affect the environment? Research shows that consumers across generations want eco-conscious options, and over 65% of consumers are willing to change their purchasing habits to be more “green.” A 2020 study on consumer purchasing habits by IBM Business Institute states that, “nearly six in 10 consumers surveyed are willing to change their shopping habits to reduce environmental impact. Nearly eight in 10 respondents indicate sustainability is important for them. And for those who say it is very/extremely important, over 70 percent would pay a premium of 35 percent, on average, for brands that are sustainable and environmentally responsible.” Death planning purchases are no exception to this rule.
In a 2021 study by Kates Boylston Publications, research revealed that environmentally friendly funerals/burials are extremely or very important to 68.2% of funeral planners, moderately important to 22.6%. Only 9.2% of death planners said environmentalism wasn’t important.
With new and greener disposition options gaining popularity each year, we did some research to figure out exactly how eco-friendly each disposition method (currently available in the US) is, and what you need to know about the environmental impact of burial in order to make choices that are right for your beliefs and needs.
The Environmental Impact of Traditional Burial
Favored by most funeral homes because of traditions instilled in the funeral industry throughout the 20th century, traditional burial– including casketing and embalming the body– is the chosen method for about 36.6% of people who died in 2021, according to the National Funeral Directors Association. Due to the way that the industrial death complex unfolded in the early 20th century, traditional casketed burial is now widely accepted as a dignified, respectful way to dispose of our deceased loved ones. Furthermore, embalming offers many families a way to say a formal and prolonged goodbye to the deceased.
However, while many funeral home owners feel that they need to rely on practices and services associated with traditional burial practices in order to sustain business, not only is it steadily losing favor in the US year over year, but it is also the disposition method with the highest, most damaging impact on the environment. Since the environmental impact of traditional burial is so significant, here is a look at some of the most environmentally harmful aspects of this funeral option.
Wood, Deforestation, and Land
Traditional burials with embalming require a casket to hold the deceased person’s body, and the majority of caskets in the US are made from wood, or a combination of wood and metal. Caskets are often made from mined metals, toxic plastic or endangered wood. U.S. cemeteries use 30 million board feet of hardwoods, 90,000 tons of steel and 17,000 tons of copper and bronze annually, according to the Funeral Consumers Alliance. According to the Ask a Mortician youtube channel, “All the wood that goes into making caskets has to come from somewhere. In one year over 400 million acres worth of forests go into creating caskets. Over 115 tons of steel are used for caskets.” That’s more acreage than there is land in the state of New Jersey. This area is a leading contributor to the environmental impact of traditional burial.
Other Materials Usage and the Environmental Impact of Burial
Materials usage makes up a huge portion of the environmental impact of traditional burial. Along with tons of wood, forest land, and land used for burial, traditional burial uses large amounts of precious metals, concrete, stone, chemicals and other materials. This article from Funeral Consumers Alliance explains, “Each year US cemeteries bury over 30 million board feet of hardwood and 90,000 tons of steel in caskets, 17,000 tons of steel and copper in vaults, and 1.6 million tons of reinforced concrete in vaults. With green burial, fewer resources are used.” Similarly, according to the Ask A Mortician youtube channel, “Over 2 billion tons of concrete are used for burial vaults and more than 800,000 gallons of formaldehyde are put into conventional American cemeteries every year. That’s 800,000 gallons of a known carcinogen going into the ground.”
Along with the materials that go into casket construction and cemetery vaults, embalming fluids themselves still pose a big environmental problem, even when bodies are buried in caskets and vaults. Both the eventual breakdown of embalmed body and the casket and vault that it is entombed within, and the manufacturing and shipping of embalming fluids themselves have an impact on the environment. An ebook called The Science of Green Burial says that, “The environmental impact of embalming is difficult to quantify as it includes the 4.3 million gallons of embalming fluid buried every year, and unidentifiable amounts of nonrenewable resources involved in the manufacture, shipping, and disposal of embalming products.” And that 4.3 million gallon figure could be too low. According to other sources, “Embalming bodies requires cancer-causing chemicals like formaldehyde, glutaraldehyde and phenol — in fact, in 2007 in the U.S., we buried more than 5 million gallons of embalming fluid, according to the Property and Environment Research Center.” Additionally, an article from The Guardian outlines some of the environmental drawbacks of traditional burial like chemicals from coffins and materials eventually seeping into the soil, as well as other toxins such as radiotherapy or chemotherapy drugs. The article also re-iterates that burial space is also becoming increasingly scarce and expensive in built-up areas.
Water Contamination and the Environmental Impact of Burial
Water contamination is one area of significant environmental impact that is looked at in a comprehensive study comparing the environmental impact of traditional burial, flame cremation, and alkaline hydrolysis from the Netherlands. That study shows that 34.6 kg of pollution per burial enter water sources. According to The Science of Green Burial ebook, most pollution of ground water found near cemeteries actually comes from embalming practices, chemicals, and the material components of buried coffins and fabrics, not the dead bodies themselves“The potential for contamination of drinking water due to body decomposition, though possible and frankly expected if best management practices are not followed, is not definitively substantiated by studies at this time. Areas adjacent to conventional cemeteries, especially historical cemeteries, have been reported to have elevated results when core soil and water specimens were tested for contaminants in a handful of cases. But there is no evidence that these findings are attributable to body decomposition processes. Due to the types of contaminants found, it is highly likely that the problems were caused by leachate from casket, vault, or embalming fluid or other incidental materials. No contamination has been reported from or near any green cemeteries in the US, Canada, Great Britain or Australia since their inception in 2003.”
Shipping Eco-Costs and Fossil Fuels
Additionally, we have to think about the environmental impact of traditional burial that comes from harvesting and shipping all of that wood to casket manufacturers. While most funeral homes source caskets from domestic companies (the largest three being Batesville, Matthews, and Aurora), if any materials for caskets, headstones, embalming chemicals etc. like stone, wood, metal, come from overseas, the emissions for a traditional burial go way up. According to GreenBiz.com, “Big ships can use more than 110 tons of fuel oil per day and can take two weeks or more to traverse oceans. he fuel used in ships, for instance, still contains low levels of sulfur and is highly polluting. And it’s been estimated that shipping accounts for 3 to 4 percent of human-caused carbon emissions. A recent report from the European Parliament estimated that number could rise as high as 17 percent by 2050.”
Casket companies like Matthews boast efforts to reduce energy consumption and fuel usage in their US manufacturing facilities, but it is unclear exactly where machinery, and casket materials are sourced from. It’s likely that at least some come from overseas.
Furthermore, some studies, like this one from the Netherlands, factors in the fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions that go into cemetery upkeep over time when looking at the whole environmental impact of traditional burial. When looking at the whole picture, traditional burial uses far more fossil fuels and creates more greenhouse gas emissions than any of the other disposition methods currently used in the US today.
What About Public Health and Embalming?
Many regulations around deathcare have been set based on the belief that unembalmed dead bodies pose a threat to public health. However, this has been proven to be untrue by experts in many fields. Many scientists, in fact, argue that the greater public health risk comes from casketing for burial and embalming chemicals themselves. According to some sources, “Casket burials also prevent a corpse from decomposing efficiently, and this slow rotting process favors sulfur-loving bacteria, which can harm nearby water sources.” Additionally, studies from the Green Burial Council performed by academics, licensed funeral directors, and doctors reveal that “The medical community is of one opinion that embalming is a cosmetic procedure and is not in any way a public health safeguard.The more pressing medical issue related to embalming is the risk to embalmers and funeral directors from inhaling the vapors of embalming fluid, which contains formaldehyde, benzene, ethanol, ethylene glycol (an ingredient in antifreeze) and other toxic chemicals, causing: 13% higher death rate for embalmers (CDC) 8 times higher risk of contracting leukemia (11.24.09 Journal of National Cancer Institute) 3 times higher risk of contracting ALS and other auto-immune and neurological diseases (7.13.15 Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry). Despite this data, seven states require by law that infectious bodies (defined as likely to be transmitted to people, organisms, etc., through the environment) be embalmed.”
How does the Environmental Impact of Burial Stack Up to Other Disposition Methods?
While traditional burial offers benefits, like delayed visitation, to families wanting to say a prolonged goodbye, our research shows that it is the most environmentally impactful of all the disposition methods available in the US today.
How To Make Traditional Burial More Environmentally Friendly
While that data shows that traditional burial is the most harmful disposition method for the earth, it still offers value and meaning for many families today. Being able to see a deceased loved one and say a final goodbye is important for many people, and embalming is often the only way to make this possible for these families. However, the fact remains that the majority of consumers are changing their purchasing habits to be more green and eco-friendly, and more and more death planning families are seeking nontraditional memorial experiences, including greener options. To learn more about how you can make more eco-conscious choices and reduce the environmental impact of traditional burial if you choose it, download our free ebook, “The Real Eco-Impact of Disposition Methods”:
Greener Disposition Now and In the Future
Eco-conscious changes in funeral traditions to are only expected to become more common and frequent as millennials and younger generations age into death planning. In order to keep up with customer needs, funeral businesses should consider ways to make traditional burial services more green, and that is only truly going to happen when funeral planners ask for those options.
There are many ways that you can ask funeral homes to make traditional burial with embalming much more eco-friendly today. Using biodegradable caskets, finding formaldehyde-free embalming fluids are just a few on the long list of ways to improve burial practices for the environment.
