DEFUNIAK SPRINGS, FL - If you're trying to "go green", there's now a way you can do it for eternity.
A handful of places across the country are offering "green" burials.
Laura Hussey takes us to one of them, in Walton County, just outside DeFuniak Springs in this Channel Three News Special Report.
It's a place where a circa-1950 school bus has found new life, carrying the dead. Welcome to the Glendale Memorial Nature Preserve where eternal rest is being redefined.
John, "We got the property, my brother and I, the old-fashioned way, inheritance. Our parents used to say boys, please don't let it get developed. But they didn't leave us the million dollars to put in the bank to pay the taxes. So we eventually hit upon the idea of turning the whole place into a green cemetery."
John Wilkerson's mother called modern funerals a circus. Her wish for a simple burial planted the seed.
John, "Anyhow, we learned that you can in fact have a do it yourself green burial. Although we didn't even know the terminology at the time, no embalming fluid, plain pine box, no vault."
The graves at Glendale are identified with simple brass markers.
John, "There's 19 humans, nine dogs, one cat and one guinea pig - permanent residents, we call 'em."
Most of the time, families bury their own loved ones in as little as a favorite blanket.
Laura, "What's not in there?
John, "I don't remember the numbers, but about a gazillion gallons per year of formaldehyde, i.e. embalming fluid, that will eventually make it's way into your drinking water sooner or later. I don't care what kind of casket it's in, what kind of vault it's in."
If people want caskets, inexpensive, eco-friendly pine boxes are made on site.
John, "This is the casket Lazy-Boy showcase. We can send you home with it, it's got removable shelves, OK, put your clothes in it."
And when earthly things are no longer useful .
John, "Bring you back to the Glendale Nature Preserve, where you can be planted right near where this tree grew. What an ecological coup, huh?"
But Wilkerson says healing the planet is just one benefit of green burials.
John, "We've been thanked profusely, several times, for giving people the opportunity to actually do something. To be physically involved with the death of a loved one that's something us Americans have been trained to not do. We don't address death, or mortality, which is kind of bizarre, 'cause it's coming folks - for most of us."
A green burial at Glendale Memorial Nature Preserve costs about eighteen hundred dollars.
