Last Rights of Central Pennsylvania

For a More Natural Disposition:

1) If you have your own rural land, check your local zoning laws for rules on home burial. It is allowed in most states. You can be as natural as you want on your own land. In Pennsylvania, a burial must comply with the state’s “depth of grave” requirements as follows:

If there is an outer case around the coffin, the uppermost part of the outer case must be deeper than 1.5 feet from the natural surface. [28 Pa. Code 1.21(a)]

If there is not an outer case and there is just a coffin or just the body with no coffin, then the item buried must be deeper than 2 feet from the natural surface of the ground. [28 Pa. Code 1.21 (b)]

If the death was not from a contagious disease, no state law requires a casket or vault.

The Cemetary Law at 9 P.S. 10 provides "It is unlawful to use for the burial of the dead any land the drainage of which passes into any stream furnishing the whole or any portion of the water supply of any city except beyond the distance of one mile from such city." Thus, check with the local sewage enforcement officer as to the distance a septic system must be from a well and apply similar distance between the well and the gravesite.

2) Forego embalming. It is never routinely required by law for funerals and we have never heard of any cemetery requiring it for burial.

3) Select a wood casket or cardboard box—or shroud—for burial. There are no laws requiring particular types of caskets—even if you encounter resistance from the funeral director or cemetery.

If you reside in Central Pennsylvania, we can put you in contact with a carpenter who can build a pine casket for approximately $350. Email Laurie Mulvey for contact information.

To order online from a selection of well-crafted pine boxes, visit THE OLD PINE BOX or Kent Casket Industries

To create and order a cardboard container online, visit anyboxtoday

4) If the cemetery won’t let you skip the vault, you can choose a concrete grave box that has an open bottom to let the body come in contact with the earth—or invert a concrete grave liner and use the lid for something else.

For lots of other information about casket ideas and alternatives (inlcuding a Muslim Janazah kit), visit Thresholds

5) And if you are motivated to build it yourself, here are very simple and helpful plans for a pine casket created by Chuck Lakin.