The area where green burials will be offered in Royal View Memorial Cemetery. (Lethbridge News Now)

By Lethbridge News Now

GREEN BURIALS

Lethbridge the first in Alberta to offer “green burials”

Feb 14, 2020 | 7:54 AM

LETHBRIDGE- The area might not look too green right now, but the City of Lethbridge hopes a section of the Royal View Memorial Cemetery will offer a more eco-friendly method of burial.

As the city’s Cemetery Services Manager Hiroshi Okubo explains, there is no embalming, no casket and no headstone. The body would decompose over time and return back to the earth.

“For many, this concept combines the spiritual integrity of the past, with the environmental ideals of the present,” reads a media release from the City of Lethbridge.

The Grasslands Green Burial Grounds (GGBG) is specifically developed to use the natural landscape of the prairies and is to include more than 1,400 burial plots.

While there is one green burial site in Edmonton, it is privately owned. That makes the one in Lethbridge the first in the province to be owned and operated by a municipality.

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It will cost around the same amount of money to buy a certain burial plot as it would for a traditional burial, but the lack of embalming or a casket will drive down the cost.

The site should be completed by late spring.