Green Burial

Columbia Society of Friends
Green Burial at Cemetery at 120 Pisgah Church Road

To make arrangements for a Green Burial:

Call the clerk of Columbia Friends (listed on web page) to see if they will allow the family to bury the person. Decide on the location for burial.

Death at home, no hospice: call 911. An ambulance will come. The body will be taken to the morgue at Prisma Richland where a Burial-Removal-Transit (BRT) will be issued.  It will name the person acting as funeral director. Go to DHEC Office of Vital Statistics, within 5 days, where staff will work with family to issue a Death Certificate.

(Medical certification by the physician or APRN (Advanced Practice Register Nurse) must be completed and returned to the funeral director within forty-eight (48) hours after being notified of the death by the physician or APRN and/or coroner.)

A form provided online at the DHEC website, “South Carolina Certificate of Death Non-Funeral Home Worksheet,” could be completed ahead of time for an expected death and could also be used for a sudden death. This would provide the necessary information for the funeral director, i.e. designated family member, to start the process to complete a Death Certificate.

Death at home with hospice: The hospice nurse and/or doctor will assess the death. The coroner’s office should be contacted to transport my body to their morgue where a BRT will be issued in the same manner as above. It is possible for a green burial that the coroner would allow the body to be kept at home until a burial that will happen soon after the death.

Death in hospital: body stays in their morgue until transported for burial. The personnel are on hand to complete the BRT.

Grave preparation: Two companies with proper equipment for digging a grave said they would be glad to be on a list: Green Solutions, Chris Walker, 803-518-4686; Ray Cruz (in pool business), 803-629-1833. However, in a number of years this would be out-of-date info. Call a landscape company with equipment for digging.

Updated: 8/5/20