Networked Urbanism

Green Burials

Although mortality is humanity’s common ground, the subject of death has become taboo and the spaces of death are treated with morose reverence that often excludes them from the public realm and society’s consciousness.  Cemeteries no longer function as vital urban spaces; they are Terra Mortis, dead land, set aside to memorialize our loss.  However, even more disturbing than this underutilized land is the waste generated by postmortem processing. Society’s efforts to produce an illusion of permanence after death has resulted in an industry that defies, consumes and contaminates nature at the cost of public health, environmental security, urban green space and our overall spiritual well being. My project asks if we can transform cemeteries into a common, fertile ground that allows people to understand death as an integral part of life. We will begin the session with a Death Cafe in the tradition of Funeral Celebrants – be ready for Death & Donuts!

-Jennifer Lee Mills

 

The waste produced by the funeral industry affects the economy, our natural resources, public health, city planning and our cultural misconceptions about death and tradition.

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Who would benefit from cemeteries becoming zones of material output?

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What groups are dealing with “future occupants” in a positive way and what concerns them?

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Why does the raw material waste of the burial process concern green funeral advocates?

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How is green burial a solution?

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What other solutions are out there?

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What would be the difference between a contemporary cemetery and a green cemetery?

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What’s stopping the independent groups in Massachusetts from establishing a green cemetery?

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A few independent groups in Massachusetts are trying to encourage a more positive acceptance of our mortality and how we think of and plan for death.  Among them are the Green Burial Committee ( a sub-committee of the Funeral Consumer’s Alliance of Massachusetts) and Mourning Dove Studio.  The documentary series Earthrise recently interviewed the two groups and their video, “Green Goodbyes,” takes us on a short tour of the limited green burial network in the state…

Earthrise: Green Goodbyes

You can also check out my own interview with Ruth Faas in the post “Mourning Dove Studios” (coming soon).

The film I will be presenting, Dive! Living Off America’s Waste, is actually about food waste in the US, as documented by an LA dumpster diver.  The presentation slides below pull out the shocking statistics regarding the enormous waste of our food industry.  The video relates to my larger research regarding the funeral industry in Massachusetts in that the narrator attempts to enact change at various points in the process from production to consumption to waste.  My current efforts to map the network of postmortem processes in Massachusetts follows a similar logic – explore a variety of scales and points in the network to see where the most effective place for intervention is.

As a follow up I will present The American Way of Death, by Jessica Mitford.  Written in 1963, this book is an expose of the inherent corruption in the funeral industry at that time.  Many of the groups I am currently networking with, including the Funeral Consumer’s Alliance and Mourning Dove Studios, were established in reaction to Mitford’s research.  She outlines with statistics, personal investigation and anecdotes the process by which funeral directors take advantage of grieving families to maximize profits.  Mitford explains how funeral homes have formed monopolies against change by establishing relationships with casket manufacturers and cemeteries that guarantee the industry will work together to ensure their own financial success at the cost of the average consumer.  Now consumer alliances have formed in many states to help people navigate the industry and protect their rights by providing information on burial laws and consumer friendly funeral homes.  These organizations are currently leading the way towards more environmentally friendly burial options as well.

Dive! & The American Way of Death

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