Cardboard box funerals introduced
Last updated 12:34, Friday, 08 August 2008
Burials in Whitehaven will be able to take place using a cardboard box instead of a traditional coffin from next month.
At yesterday’s opening of the 600-capacity new extension at Whitehaven cemetery, a new area was introduced for ‘green’ burials.
People can now choose to be buried in a biogradable coffin – including cardboard boxes.
The coffins will not have headstones, but instead flowers will be placed on top of the graves to make a meadow-like area.
There will also be a small wall nearby where the names of the deceased will be inscribed.
Tony Magean, Copeland Council’s open spaces manager, said: “I would like to see green burials from the first week in September. At the end of the day it is about choice rather than demand.
“You may be into recycling – now you can do it in your death.”
At the top of the two-acre extension will also be a woodland burial where trees are planted on top of graves – but this is not likely to begin for another year because tests are being carried out by United Utilities on the ground.
There are other areas in the extension for traditional burials and there will also be an area for ethnic burials.
In the current cemetery there are only 12 spaces vacant. Many of the other empty spaces have already been purchased by people for when they die.
Mr Magean added: “A lot of people pre-purchase before they die – even 50 years before they die.”
Yesterday afternoon the Bishop of Carlisle, the Rt Reverend Graham Dow, consecrated the extension.
Liam Murphy, chief executive of the council, said that the event was rare.
The Bishop unveiled the new sign at the entrance of the cemetery, which says: “Whitehaven Cemetery. Opened this day 7 August 2008, by the Bishop of Carlisle.”
Copeland’s mayor, Keith Hitchen said: “It is a wonderful opportunity. They happen so infrequently, I understand the next one will be in Millom in five years’ time.
“To welcome the bishop down here for the consecration is a wonderful experience for all of us.”
I think this a brilliant idea, but families with still be "financially-trapped". The undertakers have something like a 1000% "mark-up" on the manufacturers cost of a traditional coffin, so they'll just add costs elsewhere in their bills, which will nulify any savings made on the casket cost.
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What people seem to forget is that the main part of the funeral cost is actually dictated by the council and their charges for burial etc, which have risen rapidly. Also interesting to note is that it is more 'eco-friendly' to produce traditional coffins than it is to produce cardboard ones, and that the actual cost difference is minimal.
Posted by Mike on 14 August 2008 kl. 17:35