PLAINFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. — No need for a fancy casket or a burial vault. No need to embalm the body. A green burial does away with the elements of a traditional burial for the sake of a natural return to the earth.
As of this month, green burials are now permitted in the Plainfield Township Cemetery on Packer Drive after the township board approved designated areas in the cemetery where this type of burial could take place.
WATCH: Green burial now an option in Plainfield Township
"We have found through the years that residents' opinions and desires for how they wish to be remembered have changed," Plainfield Township Superintendent Cameron Van Wyndarden said. "Green burials are offering our residents another option — people who prefer that connection with nature and prefer to feel that when they're they're gone, they're reunited with the earth."
If a family member wishes to give their loved one a green burial, Van Wyngarden says they'll still have to purchase a plot from the township and work with a funeral home for the burial, but the requirement for a burial vault has now been waived. As a result, the plot for a green burial is slightly larger than the plot for traditional burial site.
"Vaults, by their nature, keep things locked in place," Van Wyngarden said. "Over time, things can shift underground, and so to be sensitive to families and to those who are interred here, a green burial site will be wider to ensure that if there is any shifting of of the body, it isn't unearthed later at another burial."
At the north end of the cemetery, around ninety to a hundred spaces have been reserved for green burials, in addition to two other plots elsewhere on the property that were specifically requested by a Plainfield Township couple.
"I think it's really encouraging to see this [burial option] is becoming more available," said Peter Quakenbush, a green burial proponent who is working to open his own cemetery for green burials in Brooks Township in Newaygo County.
We have previously reported on Quakenbush's quest, which has been met with resistance from the township.
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"I have talked to many people who want the green burial, but also want to be part of nature," Quakenbush said. "So that's what I am hoping to provide to this state."
A green burial, he says, can make death feel less final, as the body is more directly in communion with the trees, grasses and flowers of a cemetery.
"It’s being able to return to nature, return the parts of our bodies, let them recycle back and be reused in the cycles of life that are ongoing after we pass away."
