How does honoring the dead impact the environment?

Curious City

How should we decide what happens to our bodies when we die? And what implications does that decision have for the living?

It’s common to think a burial at a cemetery is the final resting place for a loved one. But as we heard in our last episode, sometimes the need to progress as a society is in direct conflict with the desire to honor the dead.

Today, we talk to one of the leaders of the Green Burial Council, funeral director Samuel Perry. His organization advocates and sets standards for “natural” burials, which he calls “the full body burial of the person directly in the ground with only biodegradable materials.”

We talk about the practicality of natural burial in Chicago and the very personal and spiritual decisions that add complexity to this corner of the death care industry.