Death: Black or Green?

By: Hawa Sadat


Human instinct for survival can sometimes cause us to feel uncomfortable or overlook thinking about our down death. Dr. Jennifer Flin of Frostburg State University takes a braver step in convincing an audience of students and interested adults otherwise. Flin tries to portray to the audience a viewpoint that holds death in a green light rather than a black one; Here, the end of life can bring forth the beginning to many new ones.

Dr. Flin's presentation was held in room 224 Lane University Center. In this big glass room students gather daily for lunch or dinner, thus, many students who were already there for lunch at 3pm stayed for the presentation as well. A majority of the room was filled with interested students, students with assignments pertaining to the presentation, and students who had arrived for extra credit. Flinn began her presentation, "Forever Green: Sustainable Burials" with reasons against why modern burials are expensive, a waste, and can harm the environment, "We cut millions and millions of trees for caskets that will be seen for just a couple of hours and then buried in the ground. So essentially, we are using resources just to put them in a hole." Flinn also pointed out how steel and embalming fluid are used in gracious amounts for caskets and end up staying beneath the earth which is harmful to the environment. Dr. Flinn also expressed concern for those who consider cremation, "Cremation is also an option but it uses a lot of fossil fuels and can even release mercury which is very hazardous".

To create more incentive, Dr. Flinn expresses the many benefits of natural burial. According to Flinn natural funerals with natural grave markers and even biodegradable caskets are range around $200 to $2,000 and are much less expensive than common funerals which can cost from $6,000 to $20,000. Additionally, Flinn informed the audience how a natural buried individual can take many forms that assist the environment, examples were a tree and a coral reef. Videos were shown on families who had chosen the coral reef method and were very pleased with the ecological benefits it gave the environment.

In a personal interview with Dr. Flinn, I asked what kind of method of burial she would personally prefer, "I really like the idea of an artificial reef because I like the idea of contributing to something that will be productive. I imagine my family going on scuba diving trips. Although, I'm not 100% sure just yet.