Up to 50 plots will be set aside for "green burials" in 91Ô­´´ Lawn Cemetery, Township council decided on Monday, Oct. 7.

The council voted unanimously to put $100,000 towards establishing a new section for the environmentally-friendly, low-impact plots.

Green burials, according to the Green Burial Society of Canada (GBSC), are defined by five key practices: 

• No embalming

• Direct earth burial

• Ecological restoration and conservation

• Communal and simple memorialization

• Optimization of land use

Green burial was the de facto choice for centuries across the western world, where people were buried in cloth shrouds, often with simple wooden markers.

The rise of embalming, sealed caskets, and large permanent grave markers in stone and metal, changed these practices over time, and a movement away from them has been rising for more than two decades.

In modern green burials, grave sites are restored months or years after the burial with local grasses, shrubs, and trees.

The first urban green burial site in Canada was at Royal Oak Burial Park in Victoria in 2008, according to a Township staff report.

GBSC has been certifying green burial areas since 2018, and 14 cemeteries have received that certification since then.

Creating a green burial site at 91Ô­´´ Lawn Cemetery will involve irrigation work and creating a new path.

The staff report notes that the project is expected to pay for itself. Rights of internment – purchasing of cemetery plots – for the 50 spots is expected to raise between $198,000 and $363,000 in the coming years. Local residents pay less for plots than people outside the Township.

Both Councillor Steve Ferguson and Mayor Eric Woodward commented that this was an option that locals have been asking about.