Two dioceses on the capital island Zealand have agreed to pool resources to bus their dead to a single crematorium in specially-built four-coffin transporters in order to save money and cut back on CO2 emissions.

The two dioceses – Lolland-Falster and Roskilde – have decided to build a new super-crematorium to take over from their seven smaller ones.

In some cases the trip from chapel to the super-crematorium will be over 150 kilometres, with some diocesan representatives saying it will therefore be more efficient to bus four coffins at a time.

“Relatives will experience the same as they do today in relation to local receiving facilities. The coffin will be nice and tidy in a crematorium in cold store next to other coffins. Then we put them nicely in a car and drive to Ringsted and carry out cremations as now,” says Slagelse Dean Torben Hjul Andersen.

Andersen was chairman of a working group which has looked at setting up the new communal crematorium, which will have five ovens, and is said to give cost and environmental benefits, particularly in the light of new pending environmental requirements to install mercury filters.

“This is different, and it is a special issue. So we’ve also looked at the ethical aspects. But the driver will drive slowly and calmly and will still be wearing black and white clothes,” Andersen says adding that CO2 emissions under the new system will be halved and relatives will save up to DKK 500.

Not popular everywhere
But prospects of the new practice are not popular everywhere.

“I wouldn’t be happy to let my 93 year old mother be driven off to the crematorium with three other coffins. It may be irrational, but as a relative you are very vulnerable and aware of the smallest things. The way you treat your dead is also the way you treat the living,” says Vicar Poul Joachim Stender, who adds that traffic safety is also an issue.

“One can envisage a traffic accident with bodies all over the motorway and without anyone having been killed,” Stender says.

Ethical Council
The Ethical Council isn’t too happy at the idea of several bodies being bussed together either.

“The transport issue is a problem because being driven to the crematorium becomes a more anonymous and mass production issue – and that is something that no-one likes. It is disturbing and something that should be well thought through,” says Council Member and Vicar Morten Kvist.

The Association of Undertakers is also perturbed.

“Normally relatives expect that when the dead person has been driven from the church, the coffin is taken to the crematorium and that’s it. Now, the dead person will be driven into storage and then on to a communal crematorium,” says Association Chairman Lars Askholm.

Askholm says he also foresees major problems in the event that a coffin transporter is involved in an accident.

“There would be several families involved in a tragic situation. And anyway, there is a standard that says that a hearse normally only carries one coffin,” Askholm says.