North Carolina's first conservation burial ground opened in December 2015 and took its first burial in July 2016. The nonprofit works 11 acres near Asheville: wildflower meadow, woodland, a creek running to the French Broad and a wetland recovered from under sixteen inches of fill dirt. Conserving Carolina holds the easement and receives 1 percent of proceeds. Rules follow the strict end of the scale: hand dug graves under three feet, no embalming, shrouds or biodegradable caskets, flat natural stones, no cars among the plots. Pets may be buried here too.
Cost runs roughly a third to a half of a conventional burial, which explains the queue: the Mills River site is filling up, so advance sales of natural burial have stopped while a second location within thirty minutes of Asheville is sought. Cremated remains tours still run; graves are reached on foot, with a shuttle if you call several days ahead.
Address: Mills River, NC, 195 Blessed Way
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