Final 'Green' Frontier: Cemeteries

As the green movement contemplates the afterlife, more funeral directors are seeing demand for a sendoff without the embalming and sturdy coffins of traditional burials, the Wall Street Journal reports. Natural burials won't necessarily put funeral directors out of business: Yes, simple shrouds are available, but so is a $300 "Himalayan rock salt" urn that "will dissolve within four hours when placed in water."

In one Georgia community, the ick factor of the unconventional proved a stumbling block. Macon residents, squicked out at the unsubstantiated idea that decomposing bodies would contaminate the water supply, voted in November for a measure to require leak-proof coffins. But the movement has taken off elsewhere. Says the director of the Green Burial Council: "I get a lot of calls from people thinking it's a groovy alternative to opening a bed-and-breakfast." (More green products stories.)