Earlier this summer, I wrote a blog on the green burial movement (or lack thereof) in New Hampshire.  While Phaneuf Funeral Homes has offered a very low cost green burial package for some time, we have had no takers.  Why not?  Well until now, there were no true green burials cemetery sites in New Hampshire.  Nearly every cemetery requires some sort of outer burial container to encase the casket.  All cemeteries maintain their properties (or try to) by cutting the grass, filling in ground indentations and trimming trees and shrubbery.  But in September, the trustees of Richmond Cemetery, located in Richmond, NH, a small town tucked away in the southwest corner of the state, opened a green burial section in its cemetery.  The cemetery trustees allocated up to 100 grave spaces for green burials.  You need not be a resident of Richmond to purchase a cemetery lot.  But embalming the body is not allowed as is the use of a casket with metal.  And no vaults or headstones are permitted.  Graves may be marked only by using indigenous field stone.  To maintain the back to nature theme, the town will only mow the grass a few times a year.  While green does not necessarily mean inexpensive, this cemetery is very good news for New Hampshire residents who now have a true green alternative. 

For more information about the Richmond cemetery, pricing and making arrangements for a green burial, please call me at the funeral home.  And for anyone interested in learning more about green burial and other eco-friendly funeral alternatives, Phaneuf will be hosting a free green burial seminar this spring (around Arbor Day) entitled “Dying to be Green”.  If you would like more informaton about the seminar or would like to reserve a spot, please sign up for our monthly e-newsletter on our website.  

Little do most people know that nealy one quarter of all the funeral homes in this country are owned by large corporations.  These firms, some of which are traded on various stock exchanges thoughout North America own dozens or even thousands of funeral homes, cemeteries, crematories and other ancillary companies like insurance providers.

So, who care.  As long as the company provides a good service at a fair price and is run by nice people, does it really matter?  Maybe yes or no.  With a family owned firm, if you have a problem or concern, the funeral home owner in most cases not only works there, but there is a good chance he or she makes funeral arrangements and is present at the funeral or memorial service following cremation.  If you have a problem with one of the large corporately owned firms, the process of resolving the problem could take days, weeks or even longer and more times than not, you cannot meet or speak with the final decision maker.

Nationwide, over 20% of funeral homes are owned by these chains, sometimes referred to as the Walmarts of funeral service.  In New Hampshire, large corporately owned firms account for about 10% of the 85 or so funeral firms.

Dealing with family owned firms, especilly when it comes to something as personal and funeral arragements just makes sense to me.  Of course, I am bias as my family has been in the funeral business in our state for over 100 years, just like many of my family-owned competitors. 

In the funeral industry, they are referred to as shelf people.  Who are these people?  They are men and women, young and old, rich and poor, from all different ethnic groups, regions and walks of life.  While they are all different, they all have three things in common.  First, they have all passed away.  Second, they were all cremated.  And third, and the saddest of all, is that their cremated remains have never been picked up by their family.  They sit, unclaimed, on the shelves of thousands of funeral homes across this country. 

We have about fifty of these shelf people at our funeral home.  Some passed away just a year or so ago and some have been with us for over thirty years.  I was speaking to a friend of mine about this not too long ago and his first question was, “how could this every happen?  Who would leave their loved-ones cremated remains at the funeral home indefinitely?  The sad reality is that many of these people were alone in the world – having no family or even friends to take care of their final arrangements.  At the time of their death, a stranger, probably a social worker at a hospital or nursing home had the daunting task of making their final arrangements.  And with no family, and often very little funds, after their cremation, they sit here with no cemetery to go to, no family to take them home and no one to grieve for them.

Several of our shelf people were homeless, and after the State of NH paid for their cremation, there was no place to have them buried.  While these are sad cases, to me the saddest ones are those people who did have family yet their family choose not to pick them up after the cremation.  After dozens of phone calls and letters to the family from the funeral home, their loved ones simple decided to abandon them. It is not for me to judge why someone would simply leave their family member to sit on a shelf.  Maybe the family emotionally never accepted the death and does not want that reminder.  Maybe the deceased was an abusive person who never really provided any love or support to their family.  Or maybe their family had every good intention to pick them up but somehow lost track of the days, months and years and are now too embarrassed to show up to claim them.

There is somewhat of a happy ending to this.  A few months ago, I was speaking with the Superintendent of the New Hampshire State Veterans Cemetery about these shelf people.  He asked if any of these folks were honorably discharged veterans.  Since we had limited information of many of these people, I told him I did not know so he offered to do some research for me.  Come to find out, four of our shelf people had served in the military.  Knowing that, and knowing that the VA provides for free burial space and military honors, we made arrangements to have these veterans interred at the NH Veterans cemetery in Boscawen.  Finally, after years of no one caring about these people, we have now been able to entrust them to care of the Veterans Cemetery staff.  They were all given military honors with distinction, had a blessing by a military chaplain and have had headstones ordered thanks to the VA.

As far as the rest of our shelf people, we will watch over them.  Hopefully one day someone comes to claim them.

I would like to continue my eco-friendly burial and cremation theme from a few weeks ago and discuss green burials.  We seem to get a few calls every month from people asking if we offer green burials.

What is a green burial?  According to the green burial organization (www.greenburial.org), it is a simple and natural process.  No metal caskets, no embalming and no cemetery vaults.  The body is placed in a biodegradable casket or even a shroud or blanket and then buried in a natural site approved for green burial.  Most green cemeteries in the US are in a wooded area and do not allows monuments or markers.  While there are a few green burial cemeteries in this country, they are sparsely dispersed.  There are some in California (what a surprize), one in New York, a couple down South and another in Texas.  There is no doubt that more green cemeteries will be opening up in the future.

People have asked me why there are no green burial cemeteries in New Hampshire or for that matter anywhere in New England. While the “back to nature” appeal of green cemeteries seems to be gaining traction in many parts of the country, New Hampshire, with its 55% cremation rate, does not seem to be following suit.

For many people, the green alternative is a way people can save money and also be environmentally conscience.  A green burial avoids many of the traditional funeral trappings and can save several thousands of dollars.  However, when you factor in the cost of getting the deceased to the green cemetery, filing the necessary paperwork and paying the cemetery their fees, a green burial will easily exceed $2,000 and probably top $3,000.  For about half of that, the family can select a simple cremation.  And by keeping the cremated remains at home, scattering them at sea or burying them above a family member or friend in an existing casket, they are saving land.

So, when someone now asks me if we offer green burials, I  say that we offer green alternatives to traditional funerals and it’s called cremation.

Over the last several months, resomation and cremation have been hot topics in our local media (no pun intended).  In case you have missed the debate, a local Manchester funeral director wants to be the first funeral home in the country to commercially offer resomation.  Resomation, otherwise known as alkaline hydrolysis, is a process that uses high pressure heated water and acid to reduce the body to calcium phosphate. Resomation is being touted nationwide as an eco-friendly alternatve to cremation and has been referred to as bio-cremation.  It seems like anything that is perceived to be eco-friendly automatically gets the green light.  And this was initially the case with resomation.  The NH Statehouse approved the resomation process and was going to regulate it as a form of cremation.  But the State Senate recently reversed the decision and decided that resomation has not place in New Hampshire.

Do I agree with the decision?  Yes and No.  While I have been interviewed on NH Public Radio, WMUR and have been quoted in the Union Leader, Concord Monitor and in several funeral service trade magazines about my opposition to resomation as a eco-friendly alternative to cremation, I am not opposed to an individual’s right to be able to select resomation as a option if they so desire.

My major problem with this entire issue is the fact that resomation was initially going to be regulated by the State just like cremation.  And the resomation process was already being marketed as a form of cremation that was better for the environment.  However, the resomation process has very few similarities to the cremation process.  I am also not convinced that resomation has any more or less impact on the environment than cremation.  While the resomation process has no airborn emissions, there is a significant electrical demand to heat the water.  In NH, a good percentage of our electricity is generated by coal burning plants.  So, one needs to take a look at the entire resomation process from beginning to end to determine it’s true environmental impact. 

You know my opinion on resomation but what is yours.