Hoping to accommodate those who desire a natural option in death, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery recently created Riverview Natural Burial Grounds. It is the only cemetery in Westchester County – and one of three in New York State - to offer this option.

Other green burial grounds can be found at White Haven Memorial Park (Pittsford) and at Greensprings Natural Cemetery Preserve (Newfield).

"We're almost coming full circle with green burials," said Nancy Coffey, a Licensed Funeral Director at Coffey Funeral Home in Tarrytown. "There was no embalming until the last part of the 1800s, and people buried their dead in the earth, wrapped in cloth."

While traditional burials involve chemical embalming, treated wood or metal caskets, and other man-made materials, a natural or green burial aims to allow the body to recycle while protecting the earth from harmful chemicals.

"'Green burials have no embalming, which is injecting chemicals into the body," Coffey said. "Some companies are making earth-friendly fluid as an alternative for families who want a traditional viewing (before burial)."

Only biodegradable, natural materials can be used to construct caskets or burial shrouds, and cremation urns must be made of organic materials like corn starch, salt, or untreated wood.

"From the preparation of the body to the materials used in the burial itself, only organic materials will be allowed," said Howard Cohen, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery sales representative. "Shrouds are allowed, and this burial costs no more than a burial in any other part of the cemetery."

Coffey agreed.

"They are as simple as possible, either placing the body in a pouch or a simple wooden casket with no nails, lining or bed," she said.

Coffey noted green cemeteries don't use headstones or grave markers and instead rely on GPS coordinates so families can find loved ones. "The grass is not mowed, and the land is not touched (maintained)," she said.

Assured Cohen, "The land will remain untouched except for indigenous plantings and natural, ground level markers."

While there are no governmental standards for green cemeteries, there are standard practices recommended by the Green Burial Council, a nonprofit organization that encourages environmentally-sustainable death care.

"It (GBC) works to voluntarily certify such burial grounds based on the degree to which they follow its recommended conservation practices," Joshua Slocum, Executive Director, Funeral Consumers Alliance in Burlington, Vermont.

Slocum agreed with Coffey that many of the burials in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery were without boxes, and that green burials are not new.

"Many, if not most, of the original people there were buried this way, as have been most people around the world throughout history," he said. "Our great grandparents would recognize what we call "green burial" as just ordinary, simple burial."

Slocum added, "What's contemporary is our modern environmental gloss on it."

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery has three distinct areas for green burials:  the Garden on a gently-sloping hill; the Meadow, which has a field of wild flowers; and the Forest, located on a ridge covered with indigenous vegetation.

Cohen said no bodies have been buried in the new sections since the cemetery introduced them in November 2009.