Eco-friendly burials gain ground

ECO-FRIENDLY burials accounted for more than a quarter of burials in the city last year as authorities strive to ease the shortage of land at cemeteries, the city’s civil affairs bureau said yesterday.

Eco-friendly burials, including tree, flower, lawn and wall burials and biodegradable urns, accounted for 26 percent of last year’s burials, compared with 24 percent the previous year, according to the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau.

In addition, sea burials are also gaining public acceptance, with 2.9 percent choosing sea burials last year, a rise from the 0.3 percent in 1990 when Shanghai started promoting them, the bureau said.

A total of 416 sea burials had been held since 1990, with 47,269 urns of ash scattered at sea, the bureau said.

In total, about 100 mu of land and about 20,000 cubic meters of stone materials have been saved because of sea burials, the bureau said.

City authorities offer subsidies — 4,600 yuan (US$641) — to families who favor sea burials, with 1,600 yuan used to pay the ship fare, insurance and service fees.

In 2016, a multi-burial trial encouraging families to help save space in increasingly crowded cemeteries by interring their deceased relatives together in tombs that can house up to eight urns was conducted in the city, and about 1,000 such tombs were renovated last year based on demand, according to the bureau.

“Most cemeteries in the city were built in the 1980s and 90s and are running out of space after years,” said Huang Yifei, director of the funeral and interment department of the bureau. “Residents are gradually going in for land-saving burials instead of deeply rooted beliefs in tomb earth burials.”

The bureau also launched Shanghai’s first official funeral and interment website yesterday to regulate the market.

Between June and August, eight fake websites pretending to be authorized funeral and interment providers were closed, the city’s civil affairs authorities said.

In addition, 222 web pages were removed for releasing fake funeral and interment information.

It followed a fake Longhua Parlor information found by residents online where the fake parlor was charging more than twice that of the real parlor.

The website lists 69 authorized funeral and interment service providers in the city with maps, making it convenient for residents to search for information. Policies and guidelines in the field are also released on the website, and residents are able to report irregularities via it as well.