Funeral or body disposal ideas please

Ah, well on that case, you need something like donating to science but not that.

Mary roaches book Stiff is all about these 'farms' where bodies are subject to certain conditions to enable forensic scientists to date remains. Like what @MereDintofPandiculation has suggested.

Not sure of the green credentials if they burn the body, and I assume you don't get to choose.

Do you actually need a coffin? My relative, the one buried on his own farm, was wrapped in a blanket.

I work in a funeral directors. You'd be very lucky to get anything cheaper than £2K for a woodland burial. You're paying for a plot of land and then the venue will charge an interment fee too. You also need a coffin and a lot of woodland venues demand 'eco' natural willow coffins which are more expensive than the wood veneer cheapies. You also have to get the body to the burial so may need a funeral director to do all the form filling/caring for the body until the date of burial. They will charge fees for their services.

Woodland burials are cheaper than graveyard burials because there's no masonry, but still a lot of other costs incurred.

I was going to suggest cadaver donation to a med school, but you’d need specific consent forms completing prior to death.

www.rcseng.ac.uk/about-the-rcs/support-our-work/donate/donate-your-body-to-medical-science/

If you have his written consent, the details of the medical schools who use cadavers are here, they all have different criteria.

www.hta.gov.uk/medical-schools

There is a house very close to where I grew up where the wife was buried in the garden. Forty years on it doesn't seem to have affected the value.

I know this might be a bit too extreme, but how about just not claiming his body?

Any possibility of leaving to forensic science? Search on "body farm" or "Human Taphonomy Facility" One was reported to be opening in the UK in 2018:

www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01436-8

There may be one at Wrexham
www.chemistryworld.com/culture/down-on-the-body-farm/3009202.article

@mrsfin
Yes sorry, I must pay more attention.

(they told me that at school but I obviously didn't listen)

We buried mum at a green site in a biodegradable coffin. Only flowers we those we’d picked from the garden. Shopping around, we found local independent funeral director was much cheaper that the Co-Op or that other big chain.

Councils set their rates for cemeteries. DM’s council charged £1300 for a single or £1600 for a grave that DF could be buried in when he dies.

Beautiful IMO

m.media-amazon.com/images/I/519ftJauqaL.AC_UL320.jpg

Would a cardboard coffin be appropriate for a no fuss funeral ?

www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=bl_dp_s_web_0?search-type=ss&index=kitchen-uk&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&ie=UTF8&field-keywords=The+Coffin+Company

I suspect this may be for a prank but anyway:

m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41fPCTYbteL.AC.jpg

greenergoodbyes.co.uk

Have a look here maybe.

You can do "direct burial" - no service, no additional funeral cars, just buy a plot from the local council. That's more or less what we did for Mum (although we did have the willow coffin she wanted). The undertaker collected and stored her body, obtained the coffin and put her in it, arranged things with the cemetery and gravedigger, brought her to the cemetery in an MPV and lowered her into the grave and supervised the filling in. We were there but there was no service, no donations, no viewings.

I was quite happy to pay the undertaker to wrangle my Mum's remains but you can, I understand, DIY - buy a coffin from Amazon (yes really!), hire a van, sort the paperwork yourself.

However - mainly for squeamish reasons but also, she was quite heavy - I didn't fancy that. Having had to help lower my Dad into his own grave during the early pandemic - we were very lucky not to drop him imo! - I have no regrets about bunging the undertakers what is quite a lot of cash for their expertise, but equally I think it's completely do-able to DIY if you do feel up to it.

Including the burial plot and coffin and sundry fees, we paid the undertaker just over three thousand. It's the old adage, "hitting a pipe - £1... knowing where to hit it, how hard, and in which direction...£150" thing, I think.

If you wanted to diy, well, shop around for local cemeteries - usually if the deceased was resident locally the fees are cheaper - but I just noticed that the "locals" fee for my local cemetery is over £800 and it was more like £300 where Mum lived. Or as PP said, you could buy a bit of land yourself I guess. Even use the garden if you're not planning to move ever....

As you are planning in advance you can certainly get a good number of quotes from funeral directors for basic burials, and seek advice from e.g. www.goodfuneralguide.co.uk/do-it-all-yourself/

Good luck. And I hope your Dad enjoys his days as best he can, knowing that you're doing your best to honour his wishes. It's very considerate of him to make them clear.

£2k seems reasonable to me. What's your budget?

She's already said medical science doesn't want him because he's too tall.

What about having him created with someone else, to that environmental damage is halved per person? Or does it not work like that?
Perhaps they do that anyway - I don't know.

Donate the body to medical science. It's what I am going to do.

www.cuh.nhs.uk/our-research/get-involved/donate-body-to-medical-science/

Isn’t a burial bad for the environment too?

I also have a relative who's husband was buried on his own farm earlier this year I wonder if it's the same person
There was no funeral either - deceased wishes.

I could imagine this could turn into a bit of a sideline for farmers who have their own diggers......

£1170 here.

www.northumbrianwoodlandburials.com