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More and more folks are going green after life as well as during it. Green burial, the practice of going back into the earth with not much more than what you came in with- is growing in popularity. Now Houston is developing its first “green” cemetery.

In a recent article in the Houston Chronicle, Shaminder Dulai details how real estate developer Terry Ward plans to turn 30 acres of rolling terrain into a green burial ground near Chappell Hill.



After thinking about his burial wishes, and finding no suitable spot in Houston. Ward decided to take things into his own hands. He pulled together a group of investors, filed paperwork with the authorities and gave the great State of Texas $75,000 for a cemetery license. The Chronicle quoted Ward as saying, “There’s nothing keeping me from doing it. It’s something I’m passionate about; I want to spend the rest of my life with green burials. People look at cemeteries as death, grief, darkness. All negative words. Yes, we need to mourn and grieve, but why isn’t there a celebration part to this? I want to create a different experience (and) make it a better experience for people.”

Ward plans to carve out 30 percent to 40 percent of the cemetery land as nonburial areas for joggers and bikers as a park. He thinks his cemetery is a place families will want to visit because it won’t have any of the morbid fear associated with conventional cemeteries.



Green burial is part of a growing movement to eliminate toxic chemicals and persistent materials from burial ritual by skipping embalming, concrete vaults, tombstones and expensive metal caskets.

It’s not only better for the planet, but it saves cash, too. Green burials cost about one-third the price of traditional ones. Plus the dearly departed gets to play in nature again, literally becoming trees, grasses, flowers, and critters.



I blogged earlier here about my friend Rosalind’s green burial- we literally buried her ourselves with our own hands, unembalmed in a shroud in a plain pine box. She’s composting as we speak, she wanted it like that.

According to a 2007 AARP survey, 21 percent of Americans over 50 would prefer an eco-friendly end-of-life ritual.



The Green Burial Council has crafted a set of certification standards and a tiered-rating system that requires cemetery operators to commit to a certain degree of transparency, accountability and third-party oversight. “We need to be able to distinguish the shades of green,” founder Joe Sehee said. “To let people know exactly what they are getting is what they think they are getting.”

The old scripture verse says that we came from dust, and will return to dust. Green burial makes sure that that’s the case.