Reforming death: Funeral Sector tackles new options
Water cremation has been mentioned as part of consultation on a reform of New Zealand’s ‘death sector’. Will Harvie reports
Cremation by water is gentle, says Debbie Richards. ‘‘It’s a clean, dignified and safe process. ‘‘People like the idea of being dissolved. It’s an environmentally friendly option.’’
Yes, dissolved.
In awater cremation, the deceased is dissolved in a heated alkaline solution of potassium hydroxide and water. It happens over three to four hours inside a stainless steel machine called a resomator.
Families get back a dry ‘‘white ash’’, which they can treat like they would treat ashes from a flame cremation – kept on the mantle, spread at a favourite place, formally interred.
Water cremation produces up to six times fewer carbon emissions and uses up to seven times less energy than a fire cremation, Richards says. ‘‘It’s one of the most environmentally friendly options available.’’ The waste water left behind contains no DNA.
But it’s not available in New Zealand yet.
It’s legal in 24 North American states and provinces and on the cusp of legality in some European countries and the United Kingdom, where it was invented.
Richards has been championing water cremations in Aotearoa for a few years and may finally be close to success. On October 31, the Ministry of Health closed public consultation on reform of the death sector. Water cremation got a specific mention as the sort of innovation that’s stymied by existing legislation.
And that legislation needs reform, according to the Ministry of Health and the Law Commission. The Burial and Cremation Act 1964, which has barely been updated in more than 50 years, is ‘‘outdated, overly specific and difficult to understand’’. Penalties for violating some provisions of the act are still stated in New Zealand pounds, the currency abolished in 1967. Perform an unlawful exhumation? The penalty shall ‘‘not exceed £200’’ or an imprisonment.
But despite the legislation, Kiwis are finding creative ways to mourn their dead and cut funeral costs. For example, what about whipping round to Mitre 10 for a flat pack DIY casket? Gather family and friends to knock it together in the garage. Decorate it, if you like. When its time comes, the casket must be lined with a sturdy plastic liner, in case any bodily fluids leak.
Coffins in aisle 45 at your local big box retailer hasn’t happened yet, although that’s the dream of Gail McJorrow, aNorth Island ‘‘funeral whisperer’’, who has written a free guide to home funerals called A Better Send Off.
Flat pack too on the nose? There are now Coffin Clubs around the country that sell caskets for less than $500. This ‘‘underground furniture’’ is often manufactured by Menz Sheds and can also be DIY decorated, or the retired handyfolk will help if you want.
OK, suppose you’d like to be cremated on a funeral pyre like an Anglo-Saxon noble? Yup, legal in some rural situations, but the paperwork is immense, according to Daniel Summers. His father, the Christchurch sculptor Llew Summers, was dying of an autoimmune disease in 2018-19 and requested a ‘‘Viking’s farewell’’, wrote old friend Yvonne van Dongen. It took 17 pages of paperwork and approvals and would never be allowed in an urban setting. But the family got what they wanted.
The Ministry of Health calls these ceremonies ‘‘cremation elsewhere than in a crematorium’’ and they’re allowed, mostly for religious reasons.
At a conference on death last week in Christchurch, it was said that funeral pyres have since burned in Wanaka and Golden Bay, following the Summers template.
What most of these examples have in common is forethought. Before death, the person concerned made some choices and communicated them to somebody, hopefully loved ones. Which is what the Christchurch conference, called Death Matters, was mostly about.
‘‘When we hide dying and death behind closed doors, we do harm,’’ said organiser Melanie Mayell in her opening address.
We need to ‘‘break the culture of silence around death’’ because a culture that denies death – perhaps like Pa¯keha¯ culture, or much of it – ‘‘becomes shallow and superficial’’, she said.
Kiwis may think about an afterlife or lack of one, but not enough think through disposal of their own body.
But ‘‘we’re very near a tipping point’’ of how we dispose of our dead, says University of Canterbury associate professor Ruth McManus. ‘‘Along with the green burial movement, which has been around for quite awhile, we are seeing a lot of interest in emergent processes offering high-tech sustainable alternatives for body disposal.’’
Rise of the corporates, fall of the boomers
This is an important year. The first baby boomers were born 75 years ago, in 1945, and that population bulge has started moving towards the grave. Or as InvoCare, a big corporate funeral services company operating in NZ, Australia and Singapore puts it, the ‘‘baby boomer generation [is] now impacting on anticipated death volumes. This positive demand profile is forecast to continue for at least two more decades’’.
‘‘InvoCare operates in amarket that has some degree of short-term fluctuations but strong and predictable longer-term demand’’, the Sydney-based company said in its 2019 annual report.
InvoCare represents the changing nature of the funeral sector. ‘‘In the past, funeral services firms have only operated one funeral home serving one community,’’ reads the Ministry of Health’s consultation document. ‘‘Over the last 10 years, however, larger corporate models, where one company operates multiple funeral homes in multiple locations, and smaller firms that
provide niche funeral services (ie, eco-burials) have become more common.’’
It’s a good market to be in, especially as the income streams are high. A researcher has found that a funeral is the third most expensive purchase many people make, after a house and cars.
The average funeral costs between $8000 and $10,000, although it’s easy to hit $15,000 and higher. Some evidence suggests Kiwis organise only a few funerals in their lifetimes, meaning they aren’t highly experienced.
This is where NZ’s 500 funeral directors come in.
‘‘People need to understand the craft of a funeral director is a complex one, in a highly emotional environment, and the potential for harm is high,’’ says David Moger, chief executive of the Funeral Directors Association of NZ, which represents most of the larger funeral businesses in the country. They perform more than 80 per cent of the country’s funerals, he says.
The health ministry broadly agrees: ‘‘There is a lot of spiritual and emotional sentiment attached to the process of disposing of a body, and a poorly run funeral or incorrect embalming can make the trauma of losing a loved one much worse’’.
The message is: Professionalism matters. You don’t get a second chance at funerals. Do it right the first time. You mourn, the funeral directors have got this.
There’s no place for ‘‘cowboys’’ in this space, Moger says. There’s almost no regulation of funeral directors and almost anybody could register with the local council, buy a station wagon and advertise cheaply on Facebook, he says.
The Law Commission thought this wasn’t appropriate and recommended a regulatory regime that would exclude bankrupts, some criminals and so forth, while insisting on relevant qualifications, a central registry and investigatory powers for the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages.
The Funeral Directors Association broadly agrees and so was disappointed when the Ministry of Health came out against strict Law Commission regulation.
‘‘At this stage the ministry prefers … maintaining the status quo,’’ wrote the bureaucrats. ‘‘We are not aware of any conclusive and compelling evidence that there is general lack of competency in the funeral services sector or any significant risk to the public that requires immediate intervention.
‘‘While ‘botched’ funeral issues can be potentially traumatising, in general, the funeral services sector is respectful of the deceased and seems to be doing a good job.’’
The health ministry was prepared to change its mind, however, and is now digging into the 200 or so submissions the consultation inspired. More progress is expected next year, but those hoping for speedy reform may be disappointed.
The Law Commission started looking into this stuff in 2010 and managed to publish its report in 2015. The health ministry finally got onto public consultation in 2020. Decomposition is probably faster.
That lack of urgency has left the mausoleum door open for the innovators like Gail McJorrow. ‘‘Arranging a funeral can feel like being awedding planner on a compressed timeframe – yet most people spend up to a year planning their wedding and only a few days for a funeral’’, she says.
Skip the funeral director and get planning, she urges. Arrange a coffin early. Ask someone in the family circle to be the celebrant. Use a local yacht or golf club for the celebration of life. Ask people to bring a plate. ‘‘It’s about what you say and not how much you spend… it’s about meaning’’, she says.
Meanwhile, most councils now offer natural burial plots. The deceased is interred close to the surface, in biodegradable clothes and casket or shroud. Headstones generally are not allowed and a bush or tree is planted over the top.
Burial at sea is also an option. There are five sites off the major cities where whole bodies may be left in water deeper than 500 metres. There’s additional paperwork and measures to ensure the deceased sinks quickly. Boats and helicopters have been used. Or get a flame cremation. About 70 per cent of funerals these days involve fire.
None of this helps Debbie Richards, the water cremation enthusiast. The existing legislation simply doesn’t contemplate this type of technology, and given the cost of a resomator, she needs Parliament to act. She’s also working with iwi to ensure the appropriate cultural matters are taken into account.
But the Ministry of Health has clearly signalled it wants New Zealanders to have lots of choices after death, so to speak. Which aligns with Richards’ thinking. As she says, water cremation is an environmentally friendly option. Clean, dignified and safe.
And you know what, given all the advice about advanced planning, I want awater cremation. Dissolveme gently, family.
‘‘People like the idea of being dissolved. It’s an environmentally friendly option.’’ Debbie Richards