Maine Green Burial Update

Hi all, here's an update on the Orrington "green cemetery" I've been mentioning. The town meeting has occurred, and it looks like everything is going ahead for later this year. Plots will be priced at $300. Nok-Noi Hauger reports for the Bangor Daily News:

"It’s an environmentally friendly cemetery where everything that goes in [the ground] is biodegradable," said Richard Harriman, Orrington code enforcement officer. "That means [biodegradable] wooden caskets, and if you don’t want a wooden casket, you can go in wrapped in Grandma’s rug or as ashes."

A "green" cemetery requires that bodies not be embalmed or be embalmed with nontoxic fluid, caskets be biodegradable, and graves be marked only by simple, flat native stones, with or without engravings.

Native vegetation also could be used to replace conventional gravestones.

Some green cemeteries have plotted lots and others have randomly placed graves, which would be the case in Orrington.

"Some people prefer a [traditional] burial, and some people prefer a natural burial, and some people prefer a burial at sea," said Peter Neal, spokesman for the Brunswick-based Maine Funeral Directors Association. "This is another option."

As a cemetery, the green space would be protected forever from economic development.

The land in Orrington is owned by retired nurse and schoolteacher Ellen Hills, 86, of Solon. She came up with the idea after reading an AARP article in July 2004.
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