Green Burial and Cremation Options

Green Options

Duck Run Natural Cemetery in Penn Laird, Virginia was the first 100% natural cemetery in Virginia. It offers 75-year renewable lots. You contract with the cemetery to lease a renewable lot for 75 years, after which the lot is once again available for another person to lease for a natural burial. A 75-year lease ensures complete decomposition, as well as affords roughly 4 generations of family to visit the lot marked with a dedicated fieldstone, if chosen to do so.
Visit their website to learn more about renewable lots for those interested in making the minimum environmental impact.

Cool Spring Natural Cemetery in Berryville, Virginia is maintained and managed by the Cistercian monks of Holy Cross Abbey where, for over sixty years, monks have lived on land made sacred by their lives of worship, prayer, and hospitality offered to all who visit. The cemetery thus constitutes a tangible extension of the monks’ life of worship, prayer, and their long tradition of hospitality.

Monks as lovers of the place have always cherished the land on which they lived and Cool Spring Natural Cemetery forms a concrete expression of this love and witnesses to monasticism’s abiding respect for, and stewardship of, the earth and the environment. Deciding to be buried on this sacred property establishes one in a unique and privileged relationship to this living monastic tradition that so encapsulates the sacredness of all life and the dignity of the human person.

The cemetery has also been consecrated as a Roman Catholic Cemetery, but people of all 
faiths and beliefs are welcome to be buried here.

Forest Rest Natural Cemetery in Boones Mill, Virginia is the only burial location of its type within a hundred plus miles. This alternative to what is now considered “traditional burial” is actually the method used until the mid-1800s in the United States. It remains widely practiced in other cultures, but is regaining interest in America. Natural burial employs no chemical embalming, no vault, and no expensive casket (although options include a biodegradable linen shroud or plain wooden box). These features minimize a burial “footprint” on the environment. For families, many of the major costs of “traditional” funerals/burials are eliminated. Another carbon-emission reducing step is the family’s option for the grave site to be dug by hand. Further, at Forest Rest, in order to sustain the natural setting, elaborate grave markers are shunned. If families wish to have a marker for site identification, these usually consist of stones natural to the grounds, with simple memorial sentiments etched into them.

There are some very attractive casket options from which to choose if green burial is your desire.