Carbon neutral funerals ...

Excerpt from Sydney Morning Herald:

Cemetery offers carbon neutral funerals

11 March 2008

South Australia's largest cemetery will offer carbon-neutral cremations and burials as part of plans to offset the carbon emissions of its entire operations.

Centennial Park in Adelaide said its carbon offset scheme was believed to be a first for an Australian cemetery and followed a study into the environmental impacts of cremations and burials.

The study found it was better for people to be cremated, compared with the long-term impact of burials, even though four times as much carbon dioxide was produced during the initial cremation process.

"On the day that a cremation or burial takes place, the volume of carbon dioxide produced is higher for cremation than for burial," Centennial Park chief executive Bryan Elliott said.

"The report found that each cremation at Centennial Park generates approximately 160kg of carbon dioxide equivalent.

"Each burial at Centennial Park generates approximately 39kg of Co2.

"However, when the long-term environmental footprint is considered, burials at Centennial Park have a 10 per cent greater impact than cremations.

"This is because we must look after the gravesite for a number of years by watering and mowing the surrounding lawn area and maintaining the concrete beam on which the headstone is placed.

"Burial is a more labour and resource intensive process, consumes more fuels and produces larger quantities of waste than cremation."

Mr Elliott said the report had provided Centennial Park with useful calculations that would be used to develop the carbon neutral program.

"Our initial research suggests that in order to offset the environmental footprint of burials and cremations at Centennial Park, we need to plant around one tree for each service," he said.

"Based on the current total number of services performed at Centennial Park, the total cost is likely to be around $8,000 each year for cremations and $2,500 for burials."

Mr Elliott said Centennial Park planned to absorb the extra cost rather than pass it on to families and relatives.

See - Carbon neutral funerals.