Green Burial Laws: Is Green Burial Legal?

If you're curious about Minnesota funeral laws, including green burial laws, alkaline hydrolysis laws, and human composting laws, you've come to the right place. We're going to break down the most important eco-friendly burial laws to make them easier to understand, regardless of where you live or your familiarity with these terms. Burial laws vary by state, so check with your state’s statutes if you are outside of Minnesota.

**Be aware, that we are not lawyers, we are funeral care providers. For precise interpretations of any statute, please consult an attorney or legislator. This page in no way represents legal advice.** Whew, glad we got that out of the way.

Minnesota funeral laws are written by the MN State Legislature then regulated and enforced by the Minnesota Department of Health. The rules and regulations are in place to protect consumers, and ensure ethical practices in dealing with human remains. They regulate the licensing of funeral directors and guide them on a range of matters, from how to handle prepayments for funeral services to requirements for funeral homes' physical facilities. They also protect surviving family members, the public, and funeral service providers from infectious or biological hazards.

Traditional burials that most Americans are familiar with involve embalming, a viewing or visitation, a service at a funeral home or religious location, a motorcade procession, and finally, burial in a cemetery with a casket and a vault or rigid outer burial container. However none of these customs are required by law.

Embalming is not required by law in Minnesota, and it is illegal for a funeral director to tell you it is required, unless the body will not be adequately cooled AND the final disposition will not take place within 72 hours.

From the time a body is taken into the care of a Minnesota funeral home, the service provider and the family have 72 hours to accomplish one of three things:

1. Provide final disposition through burial, cremation, or aquamation
2. Apply thermal preservation in a mechanical cooler or with dry ice
3. Embalm the body

This rule is for the protection of public health. When the complex processes that keep a human body functioning stop working altogether, biological changes to that body start happening quickly. Preservation or disposition is necessary to prevent an unpleasant and potentially hazardous situation from developing.

All of the Minnesota state laws pertaining to green funerals, licensure of funeral professionals, consumer rights, in-home funerals, safety regulations, etc. can be found in MN Statue, Chapter 149A. “Mortuary Science; Disposition Of Dead Bodies”

The MN Department of Health Mortuary Sciences Section has an easy to read PDF guide to Minnesota funerary laws called “Choices: Information on the regulations and requirements of the final disposition of a dead human body in Minnesota.

In 1984 the U.S. Federal Trade Commission enacted The Funeral Rule which was later updated in 1994 and offers people seeking funeral services the right to clear and consistent pricing for all funeral goods and services. This consistent pricing is primarily offered through a document, called a General Price List, which every funeral provider is required to keep up to date and supply to any client whenever price is discussed. This document ensures that the price you are being told is the same offered to every family that funeral provider serves.

The Funeral Rule requires consumers be given accurate, itemized price information and various other disclosures about funeral goods and services. In addition, the Rule prohibits funeral care providers from:

“misrepresenting legal, crematory, and cemetery requirements; embalming for a fee without permission; requiring the purchase of a casket for direct cremation; requiring consumers to buy certain funeral goods or services as a condition for furnishing other funeral goods or services; and engaging in other deceptive or unfair practices.

In Minnesota your legal next of kin, and the person who is entitled to make funeral decisions after your death is:

1. Your spouse
2. If no spouse, your children by blood or adoption
3. If no spouse or children, your parents
4. If no spouse, children, or parents; your siblings
5. If no spouse, children, parents, or siblings; your grandparents 
6. If no spouse, children, parents, siblings, or grandparents; your cousin
7. If no spouse, children, parents, siblings, grandparents, or cousin; your nearest ancestor

View Source 

View Source

View Source

Other than the regulations applied to all burials in the state, there are no specific natural burial laws in Minnesota. One of the most notable regulations for a green burial is the need for thermal preservation, aquamation, or burial to happen within 72 hours of the body being taken into the care of the funeral provider.

Interra Green Burial by Mueller Memorial is one of the few family-run death care providers in Minnesota that has a walk-in cooler which can be used to extend the 72 hour rule to six days. After six days of thermal preservation the body must then either be embalmed or reach its final green disposition through burial, also called interment, or aquamation. 

Obviously having to embalm would upend the decision to have a green funeral, so to keep green funeral options open it is strongly advised that someone choosing green burial either make their arrangements with the funeral provider in advance or make their choices very clear to their next of kin so arrangements can be made within the necessary time window.

Cemeteries and Burial Vaults

Burial vaults are not required by law in the state of Minnesota, in fact they are not legally required in any state. Burial vaults are, however, very often required by the policy of the cemetery. 

Green burial cemeteries and hybrid cemeteries do not require a burial vault or rigid outer burial container be used. Most traditional cemeteries will allow an unembalmed body to be buried but still require some sort of rigid outer burial container to be buried with the body to protect the surface level landscaping from collapsing over time. 

In this case a five sided thin cement container is often used allowing the unembalmed body to be placed in the grave opening directly on the ground, then the container is placed over and around the body but still allows earth and moisture to facilitate the natural decomposition process from beneath. 

When a burial plot is purchased it is not a piece of traditional real estate that you can do with as you please. Minnesota Statute 306.09 “Sale Of Lots” states that, “every [sale and purchase] of a lot must be expressly for burial purposes and no other…” When you accept that plot you are agreeing to conform to the policies of that cemetery.

To figure out who inherits a cemetery plot, there are a very specific set of rules in Minnesota about inherited cemetery rights and they are outlined in Minnesota statute 525.14 “Descent Of Cemetery Lot.

Alkaline hydrolysis, also known as water cremation or bio-cremation, is a cremation alternative that uses water and alkali to rapidly reduce the body to its elements. The remaining liquid contains no DNA and can be safely returned to the water system. The solid bone material is processed and returned to the family as cremated remains.

Thanks to the venerated Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, and their desire to use this method of disposition for their body bequest program, in 2003 Minnesota became the first state in the U.S. to legalize alkaline as a disposition option. The cremated remains, like those from traditional cremation, can be buried, scattered, or kept by family members.

View Source

View Source

Natural organic reduction, also called human composting, has been legalized in Minnesota, but will not be able to be performed in the state until July 1 2025. Access to this disposition method after that date will depend on when a local provider will be licensed by the state and operational.

Natural organic reduction has been added as a disposition option in MN Statue, Chapter 149A. “Mortuary Science; Disposition Of Dead Bodies”

Until that time, for a passionate environmentalist for whom composting is a death rite which provides cultural significance to the experience of their death and dying, Interra Green Burial by Mueller Memorial works with a trusted partner in Washington state, Return Home, to make human composting available to Minnesotans right now.

Most commercial airlines will transport human remains. Over the years Mueller Memorial has facilitated the air transportation of many bodies to the city of their final resting place. To do this we usually embalm the body in Minnesota then coordinate with a funeral home in the destination city for them to assume care of the body until burial.

We do the same for out-of-state human composting, except an embalmed body cannot be composted, so we provide thermal preservation during transport by surrounding the body with large slices of dry ice.

Now, Minnesota statute 149A.93, subd. 7 requires “that the body be embalmed if it is to be flown on a commercial aircraft,” but for Minnesota environmentalists seeking human composting, the important part of this specific statute is, “Exceptions to the embalming requirement are found in MN Statutes 149A.01, subd. 3, (b).

“Minnesota Statute 149A.01, subd. 3 (b)

This chapter does not apply to or interfere with the recognized customs or rites of any culture or recognized religion in the ceremonial washing, dressing, casketing, and public transportation of their dead, to the extent that all other provisions of this chapter are complied with.”

Requiring a committed environmentalist’s body to be embalmed and denying them the opportunity to have a culturally significant final disposition would clearly interfere with the recognized customs of their culture in the transportation of their dead. 

Body composting, human composting, terramation, recomposition, natural organic reduction, whatever you want to call it, Interra Green Burial by Mueller Memorial can provide it now for Minnesotans. But the way we really make a positive environmental impact is when natural organic reduction becomes effectively legal in the state on July 1 2025. 

A group of Minnesotans, led by former State Senator and House Representative, Carolyn Laine, formed the NOR Minnesota Action Group to forward the cause of legalizing NOR in Minnesota. In the 2023-2024 session of the Minnesota Legislature, companion bills were introduced in both the State House and Senate seeking to legalize natural organic reduction (NOR). With a busy legislative session in 2023 this issue got pushed to 2024.

The bills were heard in several House and Senate committees and our communications director, Taelor Johnson, gave testimony before committees to share the story of Steve Wheeler, the first person to arrange for his own terramation with Interra after a terminal diagnosis. Taelor and the rest of the NORMN group worked alongside the Minnesota Funeral Directors' Association to fine tune the bills to address building specifications, compost safety testing, and worker safety.

The matching companion bills were added to larger Omnibus bills and were passed by the legislature on May 19th 2024 and the bill was signed into law by the governor on May 24 2024. The NOR law will take effect on July 1 2025.

View Source

View Source

Whether choosing green burial, alkaline hydrolysis, or human composting, Minnesotans have the opportunity to select a method that aligns with their personal, cultural, and environmental values. As interest in green burial and other alternative practices continues to grow, Minnesota's laws will continue to adapt, reflecting the evolving needs and preferences of the population.

Whether you're a funeral director, a family member arranging a funeral, or simply curious, it's always beneficial to understand the burial laws by state and the choices available. Regardless of the path chosen, it is a deeply personal decision, and knowing the laws helps ensure that each person's final wishes can be honored and carried out in a respectful and lawful manner.