Push for green burials continues

The Shanghai Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau has continued to urge residents to choose environmentally friendly burials as there is only enough cemetery space to meet the city's needs for another 10 years, local media reported Tuesday.

Although the municipal government has been promoting nontraditional burials to conserve land, most residents still prefer traditional interment.

The concept of returning to the earth remains an important part of Chinese culture, said Wang Hongjie, director of the Shanghai Funeral and Interment Service Center. "If this concept is difficult to change at the moment, we can at least consider more ecological and economical ways to bury people," Wang told the Global Times.

The city has set aside about 5 million square meters of land for cemeteries, but more than 73 percent of the space has already been used, according to figures from the civil affairs bureau. The standard burial plot in Shanghai is 2 square meters.

Because of the shrinking amount of available land, the municipal government wants green burials to account for 28 percent of all burials by 2015, up from the current figure of 19 percent, according to a report in the Shanghai Morning Post.

Green burials, which the government considers more environmentally friendly, include spreading the deceased's ashes at sea, burying their ashes in a biodegradable urn under a newly planted tree or placing the urn in a mausoleum.

The municipal government aims for sea burials to account for 2 percent of burials in the city by the end of 2015, according to the report.

So far, the remains of 25,563 people have been spread at sea. The civil affairs bureau estimated that the practice has saved 76,689 square meters of land in the city. To promote the practice, the municipal government has recently raised the subsidy it offers to residents who bury their relatives at sea.

Wang said green burials can also help conserve other resources such as the stone. The average burial plot requires 0.125 cubic meters of stone.

"After all, a green burial is a way for every individual to make a contribution to the environment," Wang said.