WYANDOTTE -- Pushing daisies is getting greener. As more Americans look for ways to reduce their impact on the environment during their lives, many also are looking at ways to do the same in death. They're turning to options that allow them to pass on without the toxic trail left by cremation or the earth-altering effects of a tradition burial. And while they're saving the environment, they're also saving money.

Eco-friendly, biodegradable caskets, eschewing embalming or avoiding concrete vaults are a few ways the funeral business is responding to the growing demand of people such as Perna M. Nestor.

She traded in her plot at the nearly 150-year-old Mount Carmel Cemetery in Wyandotte for something greener.

"I had a plot in the old section, but when they started the new section, I made the switch," said Nestor, 84. "I'm doing it for the environment."

At a half-acre, that new section will fit 120 bodies on an old industrial site that will be reclaimed by wildlife native to Michigan beginning in the spring. Those who rest in peace there will have more simple burials, with caskets made of biodegradable materials such as wood or even cardboard.

The Catholic Mount Carmel Cemetery was designated the first green cemetery in Michigan certified by the Green Burial Council, a national clearinghouse for environmentally friendly funeral businesses.

"People are really green-conscious," said the Rev. Charles Morris, Mount Carmel's administrator.

Interest piqued

David Techner, a funeral director at the Ira Kaufman Chapel in Southfield, said interest in "green funerals" has been piqued lately.

"There's a buzz in every industry that points to green," Techner said. "We're no exception."

For the Kaufman Chapel, which caters to Jewish clients, the idea of a "green funeral" is simply adding a new moniker to tradition. Jewish law forbids embalming the body -- a process that uses environmentally harmful chemicals -- and dictates that the body touches the earth when buried, even if buried in a casket. Many families opt for a casket with holes to allow dirt in.

Techner said he has hosted funeral professionals from other faiths to show them how a return to pre-embalming era rituals can be greener. He's also showed them how wakes and open-casket ceremonies can be done without chemicals.

"If you don't embalm, you can refrigerate instead," he said. "And caskets can be wood only or you can opt for a cloth shroud. The idea is to use components that can be completely returned to the earth."

Morris of Mount Carmel agrees that the idea of green burials is, in many ways, a return to rituals of yesteryear.

"Others may think this is odd, but this is how most people have done it for 2,000 years," he said. Jesus "was buried in a shroud."

Going green can be less costly, too. Prices for an average funeral start around $7,000, according to the latest figures from the National Funeral Directors Association, but going green can save thousands on the casket alone, plus an average of $500 in embalming costs and around $1,000 on a concrete vault.

Push is growing

Laws don't dictate how bodies have to be buried, but traditional cemeteries have required vaults, embalming or metal caskets for maintenance purposes.

However, Joe Sehee, executive director of the Green Burial Council, said the push for a green transition to the afterlife is growing.

"This is moving into the mainstream rather quickly," he said. "Americans have not understood their options and their rights."

According to data provided by the National Funeral Directors Association, Americans spent $11 billion last year to bury roughly 2.5 million people, and the figure is expected to keep growing as the large baby boomer population dies.

A recent survey by the AARP, the national senior citizen advocacy group, showed that one-fifth of its members were interested in an environmentally friendly burial and funeral, but surveyors noted that interest was highest among its youngest respondents.

Techner, the funeral director, said he thinks interest in eco-friendly burials will continue to grow as green principles take root with younger generations.

Going back to nature

In Michigan, the idea of opening green-only cemeteries has been focused among conservation-minded organizations and entrepreneurs.

Kimberli Bindschatel plans to open next year a site near Traverse City, one of at least four privately owned green cemeteries planned in Michigan.

Bindschatel, 38, said such cemeteries carry economic benefits for owners, as lawn care duties are handed over to Mother Nature, and for families as well, with no expensive caskets and burial preparations.

"You aren't required by law to have a casket or vault. Though the plot may be a little bit more expensive, you're getting more land," Bindschatel said. "If we go on the way we have been, we'll run out of land. With the green burial concept that land goes back to nature."

http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081210/BIZ/812100365