UPDATE 1/16/2009 - Billy Campbell, founder of the nation's first green cemetery, wrote an editorial in the Macon Telegraph inviting Bibb County Commissioners to tour his burial ground. Let's see if he gets a better response than we did.
For the first time, an American county has banned green burial. Bibb County, Georgia, enacted an ordinance November 4, 2008, essentially making it impossible for environmentally friendly cemeteries to open. Astonishingly, residents and Commissioners claimed they were protecting the environment by banning the most environmentally benign form of burial. Misinformation stoked fears among citizens about decomposing bodies leaking into the groundwater. Never mind that naturally decaying bodies don't harm aquifers, never mind the environmental impact (and out-of-pocket cost) of burying corpses full of formaldehyde and encased in steel and concrete. The Commission went on a legislative frenzy with the perverse consequence of enshrining the most expensive and resource-intense burials as the only kind allowed in Bibb County. Click "Read More" below. . .
