A green way to go

A Catlin Gabel teacher’s offbeat lecture will tell you all about how to be an eco-conscious cadaver

By Jessie Kirk

The Beaverton Valley Times, Feb 11, 2010 (1 Reader comment)

Photo Illustration by Jaime Valdez / Times Newspapers

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Cold bodies are a hot topic these days.

At least, they are to Larry Hurst. The 30-year teaching veteran has spent the past year researching ways to dispose of the recently deceased, including a few methods that are earth-friendly. The Catlin Gabel science teacher will share what he learned Tuesday as part of the school’s annual Esther Dayman Strong Lecture event.

Inspired after the deaths of his grandmother and stepfather, Hurst said he began thinking a lot about dead bodies.

“I wondered where I would end up,” he wrote in his grant proposal. “Do I want my ashes thrown to the wind, or do I want to be buried under a tree in the wild?”

These days, remains can be buried, cremated, turned into artificial diamonds or even shot into space. As someone who likes to keep a “low profile” on the environment, Hurst found himself thinking about which options have the least impact on the earth.

Through his macabre research, Hurst found that other countries don’t rely so heavily on embalming bodies before they’re buried. The process, done to preserve the deceased until loved ones can pay their respects, gained popularity around the Civil War when people were dying hundreds of miles from home. In the years that followed, the practice stayed popular as Americans spread out across the states.

“We have to wait for people to gather so we have to pickle the body,” Hurst explains in his typical, no-nonsense fashion.

Hurst said the embalming process isn’t necessary and the formaldehyde prolongs the biodegrading process.

Traditional cemeteries are hotbeds for chemicals and waste as well, he said.

“Burial plots and cemeteries can become expansive enterprises that consume enormous amounts of water and excrete harmful chemicals, all in an effort to provide attractive and secure storage of embalmed bodies beneath manicured lawns,” he said.

Not to mention the harm of burying massive, lacquered wooden boxes.

“With coffins, there’s tons of steel and wood added to the dirt. It’s so wasteful,” he said.

Instead, Hurst found that some people are choosing to go back to their roots — literally. There’s a trend for people to be buried without a casket or chemicals. There’s even a new kind of cemetery creeping up, free of headstones and those heavily watered, freshly mowed lawns. The nearest completely natural cemetery is White Eagle Memorial Preserve near Goldendale, Wash. — there people can pay to bury their loved ones in a 20-by-20-foot plot in the wilderness. The sacred, forested land is untouched by humans and won’t ever be developed.

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