Green Cemetery Project Winnipeg aims to make death more environmentally friendly in Manitoba

While walking through a traditional cemetery, Trish Penner thinks about death, burials and ways to make the grim subject more bearable.

“I think there needs to be more conversations about what death is and what we expect and how to be more death-positive and be a bit more proactive,” Penner said. “It’s a super vulnerable time in life for a lot of people.”

This all started about five years ago.

Penner, a physician and former hospital chaplain, dealt with death often and she started thinking about ways to make it more environmentally friendly.

“We are trying to go back to how they were maybe 100, 150 years ago,” Penner said.

So Penner founded the Green Cemetery Project Winnipeg. Her goal is to bring the first green cemetery to Manitoba, joining other provinces, like British Columbia, that already have them.

“You’ll see a beautiful field and you’ll know people are buried there but it will be a beautiful place to picnic or bring your family,” Penner said.

A green cemetery is land that maintains its natural ecosystem. Bodies are buried there without embalming, placed in something biodegradable and without a headstone.

“Our environmental legacy has one more piece, and that’s in our death care,” Richard Rosin said.

Rosin, the president of the Green Burial Society of Canada and also a funeral director, deals with all types of after-life care, from traditional funerals to cremations. In the last few years, he has seen green cemeteries increase in popularity, adding that it’s hard to argue with environmental consciousness.

“The traditional burial that we have learned to accept is where we embalm the body. In our industry, it’s to preserve and disinfect. But it also leached chemicals into the ground. You’re putting a lot of formaldehyde and other chemicals into the ground,” Rosin said.

As for cremation, Rosin says it uses fossil fuels and electricity.

“So is it more environmentally friendly? Perhaps not,” Rosin said.

Winnipeg currently offers hybrid green burial options at three cemeteries in the city, Brookside, Transcona and St. Vital.

But Rosin and Penner want to see a cemetery that only offers that option. Right now, the focus is on finding the right piece of land.

“The budget is one part and whether or not the RMs (rural municipalities) are agreeable to this is another piece,” Penner said. “The other piece, especially in the Winnipeg area,g is you have to think of the water situation and flooding.”

Penner is dedicated to finding the perfect piece of land where people can be laid to rest directly back into the earth.

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