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Elderly parents
Original poster

Funeral or body disposal ideas please

34 replies

Filthycop · 05/10/2021 23:22

hello

help please

My dad is dying - it's cool, it happens he's 73 and at peace with it, breaking my heart but that is not what I need advice on.

The issue we have is that there is going to be no funeral - at my Dad and Mum's request (my brother and I would have preferred some kind of memorial but our Mum comes first and that is that)..... Our actual issue is that they want the cheapest, but greenest body disposal that they can get.

When my Grandfather died and wanted no fuss, they still had to pay for funeral cars and a cremation no one went to. My Dad doesn't want that.

In an ideal world he'd have left his body to medical science but they won't have him because he is to tall.

Can anyone help? what can we do? he'd rather not cremation because that isn't very green and is bad for the environment. My Mum found a woodland burial thing that was horrendously expensive.

Has anyone come across a cheap green body disposal thing?

Sounds harsh and un caring - but it really isn't we're trying to honour his wishes

OP posts:
Lockdownbear · 05/10/2021 23:29

You could do a very basic cremation without the cars and loads of people. And even have a couple of his favourite tunes / songs played from a Mp3 stick. If you don't want hymns and celebrant.

Speak with the crematorium directly see what they can come up with.

Original poster
Filthycop · 05/10/2021 23:33

thanks but apparently cremations are very bad for the environment an they want to avoid cremation.

OP posts:
Greenmarmalade · 05/10/2021 23:36

I think you can find cheaper woodland burials if you look around (are you in the uk?)

Original poster
Filthycop · 05/10/2021 23:49

@Greenmarmalade

I think you can find cheaper woodland burials if you look around (are you in the uk?)
yes - in UK woodland burials were upwards of £2000 - if you can find one cheaper - please let us know
OP posts:
MereDintofPandiculation · 06/10/2021 08:37

I believe you are allowed to bury on land you own. Friend’s father was buried earlier this year on his farm, zero cost, he already had his own digger. I imagine it will impact on sale values and that there will be rules about telling the next owner.

Actually it appears you can bury anywhere with the landowner’s permission. So do you have a farmer or other landowner friend?

And you can bury at sea, but by the time you have hired a boat and got the necessary permissions it may well be pushing the £2000.

greenecofriend.co.uk/eco-friendly-funerals/

Williamshatnershorses · 06/10/2021 08:40

Could you do a direct cremation and then plant some trees/find some other way to offset the environmental concerns? That would seem to be the simplest way.

CMOTDibbler · 06/10/2021 08:42

My mum had wanted a green burial, but both my parents died at the height of lockdown and it wasn't possible. So they both had direct cremations, then I collected their ashes and scattered them in their favourite woodland, then had a number of trees planted (not officially in their memory, they charge a fortune for that) which they'd have liked and offset the carbon of the cremation

RichardMarxisinnocent · 06/10/2021 08:47

£2000 for a woodland burial actually seems quite reasonable to me when compared to how much a "normal" funeral with burial would cost (average in the UK is over £4000 I believe)

Ozanj · 06/10/2021 08:48

There are boats that do Hindu burials. They have permission to scatter ashes in specific parts of various rivers. You could just hire one without a priest and scatter the ashes. It is apparently really good for local ecosystems and so might offset the cremation aspect.

Cheesepuff1 · 06/10/2021 08:52

£1170 here.

www.northumbrianwoodlandburials.com

Original poster
Filthycop · 06/10/2021 09:02

[quote MereDintofPandiculation]I believe you are allowed to bury on land you own. Friend’s father was buried earlier this year on his farm, zero cost, he already had his own digger. I imagine it will impact on sale values and that there will be rules about telling the next owner.

Actually it appears you can bury anywhere with the landowner’s permission. So do you have a farmer or other landowner friend?

And you can bury at sea, but by the time you have hired a boat and got the necessary permissions it may well be pushing the £2000.

greenecofriend.co.uk/eco-friendly-funerals/[/quote]
thank you - I'll and that to my Mum... not sure that their back garden would be the place but sea sounds fun - I think my Dad would like that

OP posts:
MrsFin · 06/10/2021 09:14

I also have a relative who's husband was buried on his own farm earlier this year I wonder if it's the same personHmm
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......

Allmyarseandpeggymartin · 06/10/2021 09:16

Isn’t a burial bad for the environment too?

TwoLeftSocksWithHoles · 06/10/2021 09:17

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/

MrsFin · 06/10/2021 09:26

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.

JuneOsborne · 06/10/2021 09:28

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

user008767 · 06/10/2021 09:31

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.

AnOldCynic · 06/10/2021 09:37

@Allmyarseandpeggymartin

Isn’t a burial bad for the environment too?
Why would it be?
AnOldCynic · 06/10/2021 09:37

greenergoodbyes.co.uk

Have a look here maybe.

ToffeeNotCoffee · 06/10/2021 09:47

I suspect this may be for a prank but anyway:

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

ToffeeNotCoffee · 06/10/2021 09:50

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

ToffeeNotCoffee · 06/10/2021 09:55

Beautiful IMO

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

Doomscrolling · 06/10/2021 10:01

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.

TwoLeftSocksWithHoles · 06/10/2021 10:02

@mrsfin
Yes sorry, I must pay more attention.

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

MereDintofPandiculation · 06/10/2021 11:15

@MrsFin

I also have a relative who's husband was buried on his own farm earlier this year I wonder if it's the same personHmm 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......

Don't go there - it would be "outing" for both of us Grin