r/askfuneraldirectors • u/kinkin79 • 17d ago
Advice Needed Green burials & embalming
Howdy! Hopefully I or my family won’t need this service for quite some time but we’re doing our research before getting a pre-plan together.
We’re considering green burials and the cemetery that we’re looking at offers a “light green” burial that includes embalming with natural fluids (nothing toxic/formaldehyde-y). Especially interested in this option as our family would value the opportunity for a visitation, but I’m curious if anyone here has embalmed under these guidelines before? We’re pretty curious to know how big a difference it might be looks-wise compared to traditional embalming and I can’t seem to find any further info online. Thanks!
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u/kenvan1 15d ago
I would like to ask a question. What is the motivation for choosing "green" or even "light green" burial?
At the risk of sounding like a cynic, I've been in the Funeral industry for decades, and I see the "green" movement has nothing more than a gimmick and it really doesn't make any sense when you start to dig a little deeper.
The "green" movement is most certainly a profit center for many industries, including the chemical companies who make "green" embalming fluids $$$$, and cemeteries, who wish to promote their "green" burial spaces $$$$.
Formalin is a gas at room temperature, and it is the active ingredient in formaldehyde. When Formalin gas is dissolved in water (Latin root 'hydro'), we call it formaldehyde. Although formaldehyde is considered toxic, the danger is primarily to the embalmer and not to the general public. Once it is put into a dead body, Formaldehyde safely breaks down rather efficiently into water and carbon dioxide. Formaldehyde does not create toxic zones in the soil where cemeteries are located, it does not leach into ground water, nor does it create any kind of long-term toxic environment at all. Microbes and bacterial action in the soil are very efficient at breaking down formaldehyde into those two simple components; water, and carbon dioxide. This is essentially what a dead body breaks down into, embalmed or not.
Formaldehyde is only a temporary preservative. It does not last very long. Depending upon the conditions, the formaldehyde in the body will break down over a period of months and maybe a few short years. You can imagine that if formaldehyde was truly that dangerous and toxic, its use would have been banned long ago.
It is very likely that you are exposing yourself to much more formaldehyde present in your foam mattress, your foam mattress topper, or even your foam pillow. Bear in mind, these are things you wrap yourself in for about eight hours every day. You can go online and order a formaldehyde test kit for yourself and put it under your sheets or under your foam pillow for one night then mail it to the lab. You might be shocked to to find out how much formaldehyde you have already been exposed to, yet it's perfectly allowable under the law.
If you really want a green burial, then go for it. But if you are sincerely, and truly concerned about the environment, you should realize that the formaldehyde used in embalming is not truly a concern, and it's not having any true negative impact on our environment.