Six feet under and still looking after the environment

An Irish company plans to set up the country’s first eco burial ground, but will people stick to traditional funerals?

YOU’VE HEARD of eco-living, but how about eco-dying? A family of undertakers in Co Donegal is attempting to bring sustainable burials to Ireland with the country’s first natural graveyard, in Co Wexford. The Green Graveyard Company has applied for planning permission on a 7.5-acre site in scenic woodland at the foot of the Blackstairs Mountains. Gone will be the concrete paving, oak coffins and large marble headstones featured in the majority of graveyards around the county. Instead, the cemetery will receive willow or banana leaf caskets and grow native Irish trees and wildflowers. Graves will be marked by small wood or flat stone markings or, in some cases, eco-friendly microchips which will emit the GPS coordinates of individual graves.

Company owner Colin McAteer says he is deadly serious about changing the format of traditional Irish burials. Natural burials will be significantly cheaper than more traditional offerings, with a family plot in his site expected to cost somewhere in the region of €1,500. “Families will save €3,500 alone on not having to erect headstones,” he says.

The company hopes to be in a position to accept the first burial in Wexford by the end of April. Already, interest has been strong. “We had about 80-90 emails from people looking to buy a plot straight away,” says McAteer, “and our office also received a few hundred email enquiries in the last week. The interest has taken even us by surprise.”

McAteer says natural burial grounds are an attractive prospect for county councils, who currently have to spend significant resources to maintain and upkeep existing graveyards. “At the moment, local authorities have to identify potential burial grounds in their regions. We would be taking away this task from them and finding suitable sites. Every plot we sell is one less they have to find and maintain,” he says.

Danny Forde, a Green Party Councillor in Co Wexford, says that while the planning process for the natural graveyard may require a little negotiation, he expects that planning permission will eventually be granted. Forde points to the fact that in the past year alone, authorities in the UK have granted permission for up to 20 such sites.

“Some people like to leave a legacy when they die in the form of headstones and graves. Other don’t, and like the idea of going from dust to dust,” Forde says. “A lot more people are concerned about how they impact on the environment in life and how much CO2 they put into the atmosphere. So, in death, they like to be as environmentally conscious as possible. The embalming process alone in a regular burial method tends to rely on major chemicals which can get into the soil, so I definitely think there is a demand for an alternative.”

One resident in Co Wexford who opted for a greener burial method for a family member was Helen Barron, whose mother, Cecilia, passed away recently. Barron says more environmentally acceptable burials are the way forward, and many of her colleagues and friends are now opting for cremation and sustainable caskets. “My mother had opted for cremation and the day we went to choose a casket, they were all oak and timber. With an oak casket, it takes another 200 years for a replacement tree to grow, so we chose a weaved willow casket which had a far more gentle and earthy feel to it.” Barron says a natural burial site would appeal, although location might be a consideration. “I think people are looking to move away from the cemetery feel of burial grounds. The proposed site seems a like a nice idea, but I don’t know if I would drive to the mountains somewhere every time I wanted to visit a loved one.”

The proposed location of eco burial sites is perhaps key to their future success. Should the sites be located in remote, out of the way areas, then it is arguable any benefit will accrue to the environment if relatives access the sites by car. Ideally, eco burial sites should be within walking distance of centres of population or easily accessed by public transport – but of course such land isn’t always affordable.

ENVIRONMENTALISTDuncan Stewart says that eco burials are not just about the site itself. "If these sites continue to be about large funerals with the big limousines and lots of traffic, then the environment still loses," he says, "An eco burial is more than just changing the headstone and the coffin."

Stewart argues that we could follow the examples of the first eco gravediggers. “Really, we should be looking to the burial practices of our pre-historic ancestors,” he says, “Because ever since then, we have moved away from sustainable graves.”

Spare a thought for those undertakers still offering traditional burials – could their business model soon be dead and buried? Gus Nichols, spokesperson for the Irish Association of Funeral Directors, says while he likes the idea of sustainable graves, the majority of people still want a traditional funeral.

“The new site in Wexford sounds attractive and will appeal to a minority. But those in the main urban centres are unlikely to travel down there to bury someone,” he argues.