INPERSON
Green Cemeteries
Penn Forest is part of a growing trend.
by Paul Glasser
Penn Forest Natural Burial Park co-owners Pete McQuillin and Nancy Chubb with their living“ grass cutters.”
Since opening in 2011, Penn Forest Natural Burial Park has become a center for green and sustainable projects in the Penn Hills area.
“ Burials are just part of what we do,” says coowner Pete McQuillin.“ Penn Forest is a place for living— not a place for dying.”
McQuillin and co-owner Nancy Chubb opened Penn Forest as a green cemetery five years ago, but they have also launched a number of other projects in the last several years, including an attempt to restore natural Pennsylvania meadows and grow hydroponic crops. McQuillin and Chubb have 32 acres near the Penn Hills Community Park but so far only two and a half acres have been set aside for burial plots.
“ We want to be a resource for the community,” McQuillin says.“ We want to be a place for people to come out and try their ideas. We have all this land and wanted to make use of it. A lot of people present ideas to me and I always try to say yes.”
McQuillin’ s interest in sustainability began during his previous career as a packaging engineer. He helped design returnable packaging products that were environmentally friendly. Unfortunately, he was laid off, but eventually decided to open Penn Forest because the nearest green cemetery was in Ithaca, NY. Although other local cemeteries offer green burial sections, Penn Forest is the only cemetery in Pennsylvania to be certified by the Green Burial Council, which sets national standards.
“ I didn’ t want another job— I wanted something more fun,” McQuillin said.
He and Chubb were interested in green burials on a personal level before they decided to open Penn Forest. Being interred at Penn Forest means that everything used in the burial is environmentally friendly and will decompose. For instance, no embalming fluids are employed and most of the burials use a simple cloth shroud. If a coffin is utilized then it is built without nails, and grave markers are made from native stone or wood.
“ Death becomes a part of restoring the land and the earth they came out of,” Chubb says.“ It offers a sense of being one with nature.”
Chubb says green burials tend to be cheaper than traditional burials because there’ s no need for a concrete burial vault and a cloth shroud is far less expensive than a coffin.
Penn Forest has space for about 1,400 plots, and individuals from Pennsylvania as well as Ohio, Maryland and West Virginia have purchased space at Penn Forest. The cemetery
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