Your Funeral Guy: Green Funeral is Low Cost, What if all the Funerals in the US were Green?

2005 is the year

287, 716,000 is the US population in 2005

2,432,000 deaths in US  2005

Now what if all these funerals were green?

Green Funerals are  low cost funerals.

Green funerals and  natural woodland burials are one way to lessen the impact of traditional funeral environmental harm.

While death is not an easy subject, keeping ethics  and convictions going forward, a green funeral  is a low environmental impact one. After all, if it is about time to go, why not go green?  So let us keep the Planet Green.

# 56 million: The approximate number of people that die on the planet in a year.

# 50 million: Trees that are cut down in India each year for funeral pyres(cremation). This releases 8 million tons of carbon dioxide.

# 200: The number of green and woodland burial sites in the U.K.

According to National Geographic, and the Scientific American

# 30 million board feet of casket-

American funerals are responsible yearly for the felling of 30 million board feet of casket wood (some of which comes from tropical hardwoods),

#90,000 tons of steel,

#1.6 million tons of concrete for burial vaults,

#800,000 gallons of embalming fluid, this cancer causing formaldehyde released into the environment. Is embalming worth this cost?

#1,000- to $2,000 the cost of a green funeral.

A traditional burial costs $7,323.00 USD according to the NFDA.

Even cremation is an environmental disaster, with a crematory putting many  toxic substances into the atmosphere, including dioxin, hydrochloric acid, sulfur dioxide, and more carbon dioxide.

I hate to disappoint folks  but cremation is not green. Cremation is not a green funeral and there is many a funeral home that calls it green.

What if all the funerals on the planet or  in the U.S. were green?

More information can be found on this funeral director’s blog.

Sources National Geographic, Planet Green, National Funeral Directors Association as well a the experience of

Your Funeral Guy.

Your Funeral Guy: Green and Natural Burials are on the way.

A natural burial(or green burial site ) site is woodland in which the dead are buried, wrapped in a shroud or put in coffins-caskets- of pine, cardboard or some other biodegradable material. The site is dedicated a conservation area. The grave sites bear small markers  made with flush stones to the ground. Sometimes a GPS marker is in involved.

Aside from green or natural cemeteries, another popular green alternative is the evolving into artificial ocean reefs. Since 1998,  Eternal Reefs(Atlanta) has taken cremated ashes and mixed them with concrete to create reef balls, which weigh between 400 and 4,000 pounds. The balls get placed  in special  places in the ocean  creating artificial reefs. Coral polyps, anemones and underwater creatures attach themselves to these  balls over time.

A reef  ball memorial starts  from $995  according to Eternal Reefs (Atlanta).

Home funerals are another option. Green and  home funerals go together. A Funeral at home take us back to before the Civil War when Americans  had home funerals handling  and burying their Loved Ones. This also enhances the grief recovery process.

In Texas, folks can act as the funeral directors, retrieve a death certificate and have a  home funeral with a  burial  in their backyard if the city,county permits it. Be sure to check with your state and local authorities to pursue  this option.

Green and Natural Funerals and Burials are on the way. In almost all cases they are a lower cost funeral.

Be sure to lower your funeral expenses.

Your Funeral Guy,

Your Funeral Guys blog.

Your Funeral Guy: Fox News adjusts Story a bit on Funerals

Fox News adjusted their  funeral industry story a bit. This happened on December 7th.  Instead of the funeral professional stating that there will be more money to be had because of growing malnutrition. They now have a lower level anchor or contributor going through the recession proof businesses.

What is said is that the funeral business is recession proof. This is only true if the funeral director accepts lower cost funerals.

Be sure to find a low cost funeral provider and let me know how you lowered your funeral expenses.

You can easily come in under the the average cost of a funeral. This is at least $7,323.00 USD. All one has to do is read this blog  and the funeral cost book referred to here.

Your Funeral Guy.