More news on the Green Funeral; Lismore Memorial Park Cemetery in the Northern Rivers region is, according to Business Day website, due to open it's 'green cemetery' on 1st July.

The deceased will be buried in biodegradable coffins between gum trees in a protected koala sanctuary.

Reflecting a worldwide trend towards environmentally friendly burials, the site, on bushland attached to Lismore Memorial Park Cemetery in the Northern Rivers region, is due to open on July 1.

"It's an ideal way of utilising land and helping wildlife and vegetation," said Kris Whitney, Lismore Council co-ordinator of cemeteries. "We will allow headstones made from natural rock. For coffins, we'd rather people used woven wicker, plantation pine or recycled cardboard.

"A family can walk around the bushland and pick a site. The body can be oriented in any direction. We promise there will be no internments within five metres. We'll record accurate GPS co-ordinates."

Families visiting graves would be lent a satellite navigation device, Mr Whitney said.

According to the article this will be Australia's fourth "natural burial site", all attached to conventional crematoriums. There are existing sites in Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia.

Britain has 228 natural burial sites owned by councils and private businesses, says the Natural Death Centre, which this weekend is hosting a green funeral expo in London.

Environmentalists say conventional funerals and cremations are ecologically damaging because cremations produce greenhouse gases; embalming uses harmful chemicals that can enter soil and waterways; gravestones are made of granite shipped from China; coffins are made from particle board or rainforest timber, held together with poisonous glues, lined with plastic and varnished, which pollutes the land.

The full article can be read at http://www.businessday.com.au.