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Save £100 when you purchase two funeral plans together. Call us for more details.
British funeral tastes have been changing for some time. We’re moving towards a less formal and traditional space with our funeral wishes than ever before. This is what partly explains the rapid and wide-reaching growth in popularity of direct cremation. But more of us are beginning to explore other cremation types beyond the traditional cremation, and the direct alternative. In this article, we are going to discuss some of the different cremation types that are out there, from water to green cremation, as well as direct cremation itself.
If you are reading this article, you might be starting to think about your own end-of-life planning, looking towards your own funeral. Or you might be experiencing the need to plan the funeral at short notice of a loved one who has recently passed away. We’d like to immediately acknowledge the potential difficulty of your situation, and to reassure you that Aura is here to help. We are the top-rated ‘Cremation Services’ provider on Trustpilot, with a rating of 4.9/5 stars. And we proudly offer our direct cremation services to those requiring our help now, as well as those looking for a prepaid funeral plan for the future.
Key Takeaways
These days, there are more types of cremation to choose from than just the traditional attended cremation funeral. Aside from this more formal event, there’s the (typically unattended) direct cremation. Following the pandemic, and a decline of religion in the UK, there has been a big increase in demand for the more informal, personalisable alternative. It’s a practical, streamlined kind of cremation that focuses on the cremation process, which leaves aside typical formalities, like pall-bearers, big floral tributes, and hearses.
Aside from the flame-based cremation types, such as direct cremation and the more traditional norm, there are other forms using different technology. For instance, water cremation, or (resomation) recently became available in the UK. It’s a more environmentally conscious alternative to the other kinds of cremation, which uses a mix of water and an alkaline solution to reduce the body to a skeletal form. Once only the bones remain (after 3–4 hours in the solution), they are ground down into a powder and returned to the family in an urn, box or scatter tube.
Beyond that, there are two other kinds of greener alternatives: human composting, and ‘promession’ (freeze drying). Human composting is a form of green burial which essentially allows the body of the person who has died to decompose without a casket. The body is placed in a container with woodchips, where it decomposes and turns into compost; it needs to be kept at the right temperature, and, occasionally, rotated, to ensure the process works properly. After this, the compost is tested for e-coli and salmonella, to check that it is safe. It is not currently legal in the UK.
Promession, on the other hand, is a cremation type in which the body of someone who has died is submerged in liquid nitrogen (i.e., at a temperature of –196Cº and then shaken until turned into powder). It is legal in the UK, but not currently widely available. These alternative funerals are ultimately useful ways of reducing the strain on cemetery spaces, and the environmental toll that cremation takes every year.
Perhaps many people find the more general choice of cremation vs burial an easier one to consider. It will depend on how far you can stretch to cover funeral costs, and on what’s available near you. But with these newer, more experimental forms of cremation, the choice is growing more complicated.
One of the most popular cremation types is that of traditional flame-based cremation. But how does it really work, and what is its environmental impact?
Flame cremation is the oldest form of cremation, and it has largely worked in the same way for thousands of years. The body of someone who has died is placed into some kind of environment, such as a cremator (in the history of cremation, upon a funeral pyre), and it is burned until it is reduced to ashes. Today, it takes roughly 1–3 hours to cremate a body, depending on its size and the kind of coffin the body is held in (coffins are not reused, but consumed along with the body). The cremator is heated to temperatures of 760–982Cº in order to complete the work.
Afterwards, once the cremator is cool enough, a crematorium attendant will extract the ashes and place them in a container, such as an urn or scatter tube, ready for transfer to the family.
This traditional cremation type normally uses a lot of energy: to get the cremator up to the required temperature, and to hold it at that point long enough to work can be environmentally costly. According to National Geographic, the average cremation in the US uses up the energy equivalent of two full tanks of petrol for the average car. That’s the equivalent of hundreds of miles of driving, which means that it’s not inconsiderable.
Technological advances are beginning to reduce the impact of cremation on the environment. For instance, crematoria are beginning to use electric cremators more frequently, allowing cremations to be powered by renewable energy rather than fossil fuels.
Water cremation, otherwise known as ‘resomation’, ‘alkaline hydrolysis’ or ‘aquamation’, is now available in the UK and offers people a greener alternative to the traditional, flame-based form of cremation.
Water cremation is the process of dissolving the body of someone who has died in a water-alkaline solution. They are placed within a steel container, and kept within the solution for 3–4 hours. This is long enough for the body to be reduced to bones. At this point, the bones are ground into a powder, and the powder is placed into an urn for the family.
It differs from flame cremation in the sense that it doesn’t need intense heat to reduce the body to powder form. The chamber in which the body is held only needs to be heated to ~150Cº, which is several times lower than the temperature needed for flame cremation. According to the Guardian, aquamation uses five times less energy than flame-based cremation.
In late 2023, certain funeral providers in the UK began to offer the cremation type of aquamation. It is becoming increasingly popular, with some high-profile figures like the late Bishop Desmond Tutu opting for this kind of funeral. Other than South Africa, it is also legal in the US, Canada, Scotland, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Whilst aquamation is considered to be a greener option than the traditional form of cremation, there are two other kinds of funeral which are generally considered to be even kinder to the environment: Human composting, and promession. Please note, whilst promession is legal in the UK, human composting is not.
Human composting (also known as ‘terramation’) is a form of cremation that reduces the human body, as the name suggests, to compost. According to Terramation UK, it’s the process of adding human remains to nutrient-rich soil: the body is placed in a specially designed vessel with a mixture of wood chips, straw, and other organic materials. It then decomposes naturally over weeks, unlike with other forms of cremation, which only takes a matter of hours.
The idea behind it is that, in death, we don’t consume precious resources as we normally do with traditional funerals. The compost produced can even be used to help foster plant growth, with some people liking it to be used to feed the growth of trees and other plantlife. It is not currently legal in the UK.
Promession is a form of cremation that reduces the body to a powder, and it is legal in the UK. Instead of extreme heat that is used, it’s the extreme cold of liquid nitrogen that provides the method for this cremation type. The body of the person who has died is placed into a container and frozen to -196Cº. Liquid nitrogen is used to achieve this low temperature, and it also makes the body more brittle.
Vibrations are then used to reduce the body to a powder, following which it is placed in a vacuum chamber in order to make any remaining liquid evaporate. Once this is done, the powder is sieved and filtered for any metals, such as dental fillings. Finally, the powder is returned to the family in a biodegradable container which can be buried. The remains will then quickly decompose once in the ground. It is much more environmentally friendly than the normal method of cremation because it completely removes the need for combustion. It is legal in the UK, but not currently widely available. It is also currently legal in Sweden (where it was invented) and South Korea.
In weighing up the different cremation types out there to choose from, your main options will be between direct cremation on the one hand, and a traditional cremation on the other.
A direct cremation is a simple and minimalistic cremation service that does away with the formal elements associated with a traditional funeral. That means it doesn’t include things like limousines for a funeral procession, big floral tributes, and hearses. Instead, with Aura, we bring the person who has died from one of our local care centres to the crematorium in a private ambulance. Once they arrive, they are placed on the catafalque in the crematorium chapel, with music chosen by the family playing. A crematorium attendant speaks a few words out of respect, and, as soon as possible afterwards, the person who has died is cremated.
Normally this service is unattended, but Aura also offers the chance to have an intimate or a fully attended service in certain locations. Because most of the extra formalities are screened out of the service, direct cremation prices are normally much lower than the average funeral cost. Aura’s prepaid funeral plans are available from £1,695, and for those organising a direct cremation funeral in the here and now from £1,195; both of these starting prices are less than half of last year’s average cost for a traditional funeral in the UK according to SunLife, which they put at £4,285. In this way, direct cremation helps families to keep their funeral costs down.
Direct cremation appeals to a wide variety of people. Those who are looking to minimise their costs can arrange a dignified and affordable funeral in this way. Aside from that, direct cremation also appeals to people who don’t want to make a fuss. It’s a simple, low-cost alternative to a larger, more traditional funeral without additional elements such as high-end coffins, limousines and a hearse.
There are others who like the flexibility and personalisation that direct cremation can offer. These days, people like to have the option of adding an end-of-life celebration after the funeral at a time that suits them, rather than feeling pressure on the same day to do something social when they are not ready. These possibilities are all enabled by direct cremation.
We hope you have found this article about cremation types useful. Settling on a cremation type is a vital part of end-of-life planning, and it’s important to take the necessary time to consider your options. Aura is a funeral plan provider with a difference: we’re family run and family sized. Paul Jameson set us up in 2019, following his motor neurone disease diagnosis, with one mission: to provide the families of Great Britain with compassionate and knowledgeable funeral preplanning support. He still runs the company today alongside his son, David (our CEO), and a family friend called Ben (our COO). Our industry-leading Aura Angel team offers that family compassion to each and every person we support, giving a level of care that is hard for larger companies to match.
If you’d like to see whether Aura could be the right people to help you with your funeral planning, why not download our free funeral-plan brochure today?
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