Wicker Casket is an environmentally friendly choice for use in natural burials. Photo courtesy Gracie MacDonell, Bellefontaine Cemetery.
Bellefontaine Cemetery offers the St. Louis community the option of natural burial and a dedicated environmentally sensitive space as additional choices when making personal end of life decisions.
Bellefontaine Cemetery is certified by the Green Burial Council, an organization focused on environmentally sustainable death care, natural burial, and education and certification of funeral homes, cemeteries, and related products.
Natural burials are offered throughout the Bellefontaine cemetery, but a newly designed space, Evergreen Meadow, offers a dedicated area in the cemetery where no pesticides or inorganic fertilizers are allowed and groundskeeping utilizes limited mechanized maintenance.
Gracie MacDonell, the vice president customer relations at Bellefontaine Cemetery, is the special guest for an Environmental Echo podcast with Holly Shanks.
MacDonell gives insight into the history of natural burials, the process involved with choosing a natural burial, and the options family members have when taking care of a loved one’s last wishes at the end of life.
Produced by Holly Shanks. Music provided by House of Cowboy.
To read an Environmental Echo article about green burials from January 2015, CLICK HERE.
Environmental Echo 
I learned today that Prof. Kate Parsons of Webster University will be taking a class to Bellefontaine Cemetery to learn more about green burials and how they are conducted. I interviewed Joe Sehee, founder of the Green Burial Council for my book, “Environmental Missouri,” and he said: “I think more people would embrace green burials if they knew they were dealing with professionals who have the psycho-social and spiritual training to assist them in honoring the dead, healing the living, and inviting the divine.”
LikeLike