BY PHIL CUSTODIO
Clarkston News Editor
With spring sprung and Earth Day this past weekend, people are looking for ways to go green. All Saints Cemetery offers the ultimate green alternative – all natural burial in The Preserve, 44001 Nelsey Road.
Response has been very positive since they started offering green burials 10 years ago, with over 300 gravesites sold and more than 50 burials so far, said the Preserve Director Russ Burns.
“Mostly environmentalists interested in reducing their carbon footprint, and those who just want to do something nice for the planet,” Burns said. “Green burial is a lifestyle decision for many families where embalming and grave liners are not permitted in order to allow the natural rhythms of life to take their course.”
The 50-acre site on Maceday Lake is separate from the All Saints cemetery, kept natural with no traditional headstones, nor metal, plastic, or other nonbiodegradable materials in the caskets. Many are buried in shrouds.
“You become one with nature,” Burns said. “The property is nice and peaceful. Families like it. They all say it’s just wonderful.”
The property, which is certified by the Green Burial Council, is decorated with all native plants, including a centuries old tree, with gravel for the unpaved road recycled from millings of the cemetery’s old entryway road.
Graves in memorialization areas are marked with natural fieldstones, all found on the property.
“People can pick out a rock and have it inscribed,” Burns said.
Other areas are kept free of memorials at the grave, but names can be memorialized on a stone wall.
For more information, call 248-608-7008 or check www.mtelliott.com/thepreserve.