Green Funeral?-Ask Your City Cemetery to approve|yourfuneralguy

Do you want to have a green funeral?some are going to their local city cemetery simply asking them  to make it happen. Many times in life we simply do not  receive what we want want simply because we do not ask.

It may be true in death as well, in regards to green burial.  At last it has happened in Ashland, Oregon.

Residents who want to bury loved ones in an environmentally sensitive way in Ashland no longer have to place the casket or shroud inside a concrete or metal liner or vault.

The Ashland City Council voted on Tuesday to allow such “green” burials in city cemeteries.

Previously, the Ashland Municipal Code required the use of liners or vaults to prevent settling of the ground at the grave site. City staff members who manage city cemeteries said they expect some settling to occur with green burials, but that the problem isn’t anything they can’t handle.

The city of Ashland made the change because it has been receiving requests from residents that green burials be allowed, said Ashland Public Works Director Mike Faught.

“It’s a step forward for those folks who want a natural burial, without having to have a concrete vault,”

via www.dailytidings.com

So if you want a green burial assert yourself. In Ashland Oregon they Have Put Wilbert Vault on Notice.

Funeral Industry|Funeral News|Funeral blog by Your Funeral Guy

Calgary City Cemetery GPS Headstones and Green Burials-YourFuneralGuy

It has been reported that the  City Cemetery in Calgary Alberta  now has a new strategy  for the Future. The strategy consists of GPS Markers as headstones and green burials.

GPS Markers as Heastones and Green Burials are making natural burial grounds a reality.

The cemetery manager has stated that this is the plan for the future.

Green Burials occur in a an open field with a cardboard box or a shroud. There is no embalming chemicals put into the ground. GPS(Global Positioning systems)grave  markers are not visual above ground. They let out a  a radio signal  so they can  be located with a global positioning device(GPS). These options make the natural burial ground of the grasslands a reality.

“CALGARY (CBC) – For the first time in 70 years, the City of Calgary has a new strategy for the city’s soon-to-be-full cemeteries: green burials and GPS locators for finding the dead.

Four of Calgary’s five municipal cemeteries are full, and officials estimate the Queen’s Park burial lands, which opened in 1940, will run out of space within 10 years.”-via www.cbc.ca

As  time goes on Cemeteries  will embrace the GPS headstones and green burials because people(especially baby boomers) want these options and they are less expensive.

GPS Markers as headstones  will change the face of the cemetery in the United States. It is all made possible with the new technology of geolocating.

Funeral Industry|Funeral News| Funeral blog by Your Funeral Guy

A First:Municipal not for profit-green cemetery-yourfuneralguy

European|Green Cemetery(getty images rf)

A section of a Non-Profit Municipal Cemetery has been put aside for Green Burials, in Lawrence, Kansas. For profit geen burial grounds are growing in the United States. This is the first type of this kind of cemetery for Kansas, and maybe the United States. Green burial grounds are less expensive to maintain and can be a cost advantage for municipalities.

Embalming fluid and metal caskets are prohibited. The Oakhill cemetery is fairly close to Kansas City. Most green cemeteries are located quite a distance from the metropolitan areas. Transportation for out of city green funeral  can raise funeral cost.

Funeral Industry|Funeral Cost Blog  by your Funeral Guy.

Source: KansasCity.com

Your Funeral Guy: The Average Funeral Cost of Traditional Funeral is over $8000.00 USD

The Average Cost of a Funeral in 2008 was $8000.00 USD +and maybe more. This year the NFDA  raised the average funeral cost in 2006 to $7,323.00 Dollars. This has been mentioned at this blog. Now how can this happen? The National Funeral Directors Association.collects statistics from funeral homes and funeral directors around the United States. If they receive more information they change the numbers.

Cost for traditional Funerals has been trending upward.  but at the same time lower cost funerals such as green funerals, cremation and direct burial are also growing to  the broad prosperity of all. This also has sent the traditional funeral cost upward. It has cut into funeral home profits.

So after much research I am lowballing the average cost of a funeral in 2008 to be $8000.00 USD.

The Over 50 Website declares the same average funeral cost. “the average US funeral costs over $8,000 as far as I can deduce from the sparse information that is published, and it seems very easy for funerals to cost from $10,000 to $20,000 or more!”

More information on how to lower average funeral cost can be found here:

Rest in Peace: Insider’s Tips to the Low Cost Less Stress Funeral

Your Funeral Guy.

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: Green Funeral Homes/Burials-low funeral cost- are Happening Now

A Funeral Director in New Jersey is taking the lead  in Green by selling solar pannels and advocating lower funeral cost(low funeral cost =green funeral/burial. The Director’s name is Bob Prout

“Prout is also leading the way as a proponent of natural or

“green” burials, which further protect the environment and give people

another option in the end of life planning process. “More and more people

who truly loved the earth in life are choosing to continue their conservation

efforts in death by opting for natural burials,” Prout says.”

Here is the full post and an excellent one at green Funeral Homes and Green funeral cost.
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,229869.shtml

This is predicted in the work "Rest in Peace"

Rest in Peace: Insider’s Tips to the Low Cost Less Stress Funeral by R Brian Burkhardt and Matt Bacak. #1 International Best Selling Author Jason Oman also gave thumbs up to this book. This book is published by Morgan James Publishing.

Your Funeral Guy, R Brian Burkhardt, Funeral Director, Author, Blogger, State of Illinois

Your Funeral Guy:Funeral Cost too High in the USA!(last 2 weeks)

Your Funeral Guy:Funeral Cost too High in the USA!(last 2 weeks). Funerals always cost too much in any situation because a person is involved. But the death of these folks is too much funeral cost to the  world. May they all rest in peace. All three.

First there was the Tim Russert  Wake and Memorial Service:
The funeral cost to the nation was too great.
Maria Shriver read the poem….The Little Ship in Washington DC. Bruce Springsteen was front and center.
It would be wrong not to repeat it. It is one of the best funeral poems ever written.

The Wife of the Actor and  California governor “Arnold” gave a great funeral poem.

“The Little Ship”

I stood watching as the little ship sailed out to sea. The setting sun tinted his white sails with a golden light, and as he disappeared from sight a voice at my side whispered, “He is gone”.

“But the sea was a narrow one. On the farther shore a little band of friends had gathered to watch and wait in happy expectation. Suddenly they caught sight of the tiny sail and, at the very moment when my companion had whispered, “He is gone” a glad shout went up in joyous welcome, “Here he comes!”

A Good post on this is here:
http://www.tellinitlikeitis.net/2008/06/maria-shriver-poem-at-tim-russerts-funeral-service.html

Then there was the  funeral song “over the rainbow”. People walked out of his memorial service to this Rainbow. Was this a blessing from the man upstairs(apologies to atheists if this does not make you a believer nothing will)

If you do not cry during this Video! You are not human. Barack Obama and John McCain sat together at this event. If you ever click on a Your Funeral Guy, funeral cost link click on this one!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBddo1RGiJU

Then there was the Tasha Tudor death: The great literary illustrator original  green lady died.
Kids will miss her. Even guys read “The Secret Garden.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/22/AR2008062202026.html”

As if this was not enough we also lost to funeral cost, George Carlin the modern Free Speech almost pornographic comedian. The famous 7 words guy.

Even Jerry Seinfeld is coming back to honor him.

In the 2 weeks Funeral Cost has been too high in the USA!
May all Rest in Peace.
Now there is more funeral story and history in Rest in Peace.

Rest in Peace: Insider’s Tips to the Low Cost Less Stress Funeral by R Brian Burkhardt and Matt Bacak

Your Funeral Guy: Call Funeral Directors to honesty on Funeral Cost

Your Funeral Guy: Call Funeral Directors to honesty on Funeral Cost

Recently I thanked a Funeral Director on another blog for his honesty on Funeral Cost.

Here is what I said it is worth repeating here:

“Thank you for your honesty.

we share a trust level well short of that of mechanics, stockbrokers, real estate and insurance agents. This information should be a wake up call.

Only a few in our profession are this honest and candid. On another blog on this site I have mentioned & commented on some scandals. They are the result of the sins of more than a few. Let it be known that inspite of some blogs and comments that are tough, I have withheld information from the media on these events. Instead I have called on Leaders in the Funeral Industry to be honest. You sir are a part of the city set on the hill.

Your ethics are appreciated. I love helping families and for that reason I wrote a new book called Rest in Peace. In this work I declare that there are honest ethical funeral directors like yourself who are willing to embrace the changes that are to come!”

It is my hope that the ILLINOIS FUNERAL DIRECTORS ASSOCIATION (IFDA )will embrace ethics and honesty.

Right now I just find myself too busy helping folks lower the cost of their funerals…to keep up with this.

The IFDA knows the changes that are coming.

To the IFDA I Wish you the best.

There will be blogs here from time to time as things become public on the IFDA Funeral cost issue and the “IFDA Preneed Trust.”

The IFDA has had it’s wake up call.

Earlier this year it came out that the IFDA- had mis managed 40 Million Dollars of the folks “IFDA Preneed Trust” money in Illinois.

Beware of organizations like the IFDA in keeping Funeral Directors Honest and keeping your lower cost funeral Specific State Senator Randall Hulfgren refused to take action on this along with hultgrenfh. Hultgren Funeral Home is not the only culprit. Trimble Funeral Homes www.trimblefuneralhomes.com had family on the IFDA committees and has refused comment on the IFDA Preneed Trust situation inspite of positve press from…Quad-City Dispatch

More information on keeping funeral directors honest can be found here including average funeral cost:

Rest in Peace: Insider’s Tips to the Low Cost Less Stress Funeral by R Brian Burkhardt and Matt Bacak. #1 International Best Selling Author Jason Oman also gave thumbs up to this book. This book is published by Morgan James Publishing.

Your Funeral Guy, R Brian Burkhardt, Funeral Director, Author, Blogger, State of Illinois

Your Funeral Guy:Green Burial, Green Funeral –Lower Funeral Cost

Your Funeral Guy:Green Burial, Green Funeral does not always mean Lower Funeral Cost. Seattle, Maine, North Carolina, San Francisco all have places that are starting to become in this new trend.It has been happening in England. Just like any funeral you get what you pay for and you should pay less funeral cost and still get great service.

Two books have contributed to the Green Burial Situation.

Mark Harris’s “Grave Matters”:

Grave Matters: A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial by Mark Harris

And “Rest in Peace” by R. Brian Burkhardt and Matt Bacak.

Rest in Peace: Insider’s Tips to the Low Cost Less Stress Funeral by R Brian Burkhardt and Matt Bacak

Both these books creatively examine the issues around green funerals and burials.

More information on this can be found at the Funeral Consumer Alliance, Green Burial Council and the AARP

in this article:

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/consumersmarts/archives/141653.asp

Photo Credit: Getty Images