Cremation and Burial

Cremation

What is cremation?

Cremation is the process by which the body is incinerated and reduced down to its simplest form of bone. This in turn is then processed into ash and small bone fragments and placed in a urn. The thing about cremation is you can still have a full funeral if you choose to be cremated. In some cases, they even allow you to assist with the cremation process, if your religious or personal beliefs dictate that that's something you want to do.

What are the advantages of cremation?
The are many benefits of cremation. With cremation, you have many options that you would not have with a full-body burial. You're able to take the cremated remains away. You can either take them home or scatter them in a place where the deceased was really happy, as long as it's legal. Cremation really has its benefits. It also actually takes up less ground space than a full-body burial. The cost will also be less expensive than for a full-body interment.

Burial

What is burial?

Burial, also called interment and (when applied to human burial) inhumation, is the act of placing a person or object into the ground. This is accomplished by digging a pit or trench, placing the person or object in it, and replacing the soil.

Are there advantages to burial?
If a family already owns a plot in a cemetery, and if they're in a local authority area where the charge for the opening of a grave is quite low, with these circumstances, the burial would be cheaper than the cremation. However, the national average would suggest that a cremation is the cheaper option than a burial.

Although cremation was originally said to be environmentally preferable to burial, modern thinking is challenging this. Gas and trees (in wooden coffins) is consumed in the cremation process. Natural resources are used up, carbon dioxide is produced, adding to the global warming problem and harmful pollutants are released into the atmosphere. Natural decomposition after burial seems less harmful to the environment, especially when a shroud rather than a coffin is used. If graves are reused, no land is lost to the living but rather a community amenity is brought back into use.

A funeral in the UK can be either by burial or cremation and can be arranged with or without the help of a funeral director.

Which ever option you choose, you will find information about cremation, burial, Southampton Crematorium and the five cemeteries in the city on these pages.