[GREN-Exec] my plans for the next year

[Susan Koswan]

England is certainly far and away ahead of North America in terms of green
burials. Canada only has 2 "green" cemeteries (Cobourg and one of the
Vancouver islands) at this point. 

 

My project for the Ecopreneurs class was to pitch a green business, so I've
already done some research into what is currently available and where I'd
like to see us go. 

 

Museums and taxidermists already use dermestid beetles to consume the flesh
and leave just skeletal remains. But a taxidermist in the US said fat can be
a big issue. Then I thought whales - lots of blubber that has obviously been
successfully dealt with to produce the skeletons we see in museums. You may
recall the big blue whale that washed up on the east coast and the county
there couldn't afford to deal with it. The ROM in Toronto took charge of it
and they've been composting it in huge shipping containers. Quite the
operation. 

 

And here's where life gets interesting. The company that was hired to do
this is owned by the brother of Janet May, formerly the anti-pesticide
activist at the Toronto Environmental Alliance and now a friend of mine. And
the only reason I know this is that our respective families met up in
cottage country a few years back when we were cottaging in the same area and
there had just been an article about her brother in the local cottage rag. I
like when the universe comes full circle. 

 

I corresponded with the directors of two "body farms", that you mentioned
here, Greg. (attached to U of Tennessee actually, and in Australia.) Both
women. The Aussie was in Canada for several years, an academic who started
up the Forensics programme at U of Ontario in Whitby). She turned me in the
direction of dermestid beetles. 

 

So I'm getting over my life-long anxieties about death and dying. The
progressive re-absorption of any dead creature, human or otherwise, back
into earthly atoms is fascinating with its succession of maggots, bugs and
internal digestive acids. 

 

When my mother died, I was surprised how important it was to me, at least
initially, to have a "location" for her (and now my father). I'm hoping that
as we rethink dying and death, the ceremony for the bereaved will become far
more important in the grieving process than the need for a specific burial
site...as fascinating as old graveyards are and the stories they tell. 8-)

 

Susan K  

 

 

From: Gregory C. Michalenko [mailto:gcmichalenko at uwaterloo.ca] 
Sent: 3 May 2016 11:31
To: Susan Koswan
Cc: executive-bounces at gren.ca
Subject: RE: [GREN-Exec] my plans for the next year

 

Dear Susan, 

 

I've read reports on "green" burials in England.  i suspect that
administrative logistics will eat up a lot of your time at the outset, but
then you are very capable at jousting with planners and bureaucrats, as well
as stubborn but weak-kneed politicians.

 

There are lots of unofficial burials, however, that avoid such problems of
officialdom.  I used to watch a BBC travel program on PBS that featured a
wacky UK traveler who went around the US visiting really weird places.  One
program included a visit to a forensic burial research facility in Virginia.
Once through the secure fences and entrance to the facility in a pleasant
area of farms and small forests, things got pretty spooky.  Corpses donated
"for scientific purposes" were strewn about, buried, or disposed of in a
bewildering variety of ways.  There was a rusty old car with its trunk lid
ajar and a well-weathered leg sticking out.  Its next-"door" neighbour's
extremities were poking out from under a heap of leaves and garden trash.
Another donation was eroding out from a faithful replica of a hurried
night-time burial (what the press refers to as "a shallow grave").  There
were dumpsters of various sorts, lids on or lids off, some with just a body
within, others with bodies poked into the usual accumulation of pizza boxes,
old clothing, garbage bags, broken toys, soiled pampers, and household
detritus of all sorts.  There were many mounds positioned in different types
of soil, designed to determine the rotting chronologies of the wealth of
different soil ecosystems with their teaming menageries of delighted
specialist necrophagists.  And then there was the matter of clothing:  none,
some, or fully decked out; organic cottons vs the most
microorganism-resistant of synthetics (something that is probably bitterly
detested by the awaiting hungry and disappointed  bacteria and fungi).  The
facility was scientifically designed NOT to be scavenger-proof, and some
stiffs were just dumped into the woods, and voluminous data meticulously
recorded about the ability of the local critters to tuck into the unexpected
feast and scatter the hard parts.  The featured traveler noted that the
place "didn't smell very nice".

 

Such wonderful opportunities await you, dear Susan!  Good luck!

 

All the best, Greg

 

ps  Full disclosure:

 (1) I follow the Bosma murder trial every day. 

(2) I love old cemeteries.  They really trigger my emotions.  What could be
more achingly poignant than the grave, on a wind-swept headland in the Iles
de la Madeleine, of Marie, wife of a fisherman lost at sea, buried with 3
predeceased children aged 3, 4, and 8, along with an inscription on the side
of the old rugged stone "and 2 infants, buried somewhere in these islands"?


(3)  Our much-loved felines, Dusty, Tilley, Gizmo, and just this last
January 24, Shadow (who had belonged to a street kid) have all had
eco-burials in the native plant corner of our yard, beneath the
alternate-leaved dogwood, redbud, wild ginger, maidenhair ferns, twinleaf,
dutchmen's breeches, and various wood sedges.  Oh yeah, I forgot, also
dandelions, which I know you approve of.

 

A speculation:  if Gaia does Know All, perhaps those who  ecoslumber in the
enveloping substrata of our ancient woods, can hear it when a migratory
white-throated sparrow announces that it is early spring, or take comfort
from a prothonotary warbler in the boundary layer of life between
terra-firma and the cosmos which surely has its own comforting cadence,
every bit as brilliant as it shining plumage is to the human eye

  _____  

From: Executive [executive-bounces at gren.ca] on behalf of Susan Koswan
[susankoswan at execulink.com]
Sent: Monday, May 02, 2016 3:16 PM
To: 'GREN Executive'
Subject: [GREN-Exec] my plans for the next year

Hi GREN Exec,

 

Just wanted to let you know that I will be taking a hiatus from GREN for
Sept/16 to May/17 because I was accepted full time into the Green Management
Certificate program at Conestoga. Not sure if this is woohoo...or am I out
of my *expletive* mind???? 

 

I took the Ecopreneurship class this winter and quite enjoyed it and even
scored an 89 for my final mark. (Yes, I'm bragging a little bit here). My
somewhat ulterior motive in doing this is to build my skill-set to create a
real business plan for a true eco-friendly process for preparing and
disposing of human remains (ie green burial) that doesn't involve embalming
or cremation - which are both nasty, nasty, nasty, environmentally-speaking.

 

I have some ideas that I've been researching, if you're interested. Not
totally for the faint-hearted or squeamish, but I think there is a growing
niche-market ... 8-)

 

Susan K  

 

 

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