Last month, we reported on the rising costs of funerals in
the UK which are sending our burials soaring to as much as £4,000 per funeral.
This rise of 12% practically year-on-year has opened doors for entrepreneurs
looking to offer more creative and bespoke funeral experiences.
Poppy Mardall of Poppy's Funerals told
The Guardian that "funerals have become a conveyor-belt experience, with
large funeral companies industrialising the process of caring for people's
bodies."
Alternative funeral ceremonies
Britons are slowly moving away from funerals where a traditional
wooden coffin arrives in a traditional black hearse. Other alternatives have
seen the bereaved arrive on barges, motorbikes, bicycles and VW campervans -
something that reflects the individual's interests or the family's needs.
In terms of coffins, there is a lot of innovation to make the
burial more ecological with materials including bamboo, pineapple leaves and
fungal spores which decompose into the ground. Elsewhere, there is movement
away from the dark and sombre wooden coffins to more bright and colourful
coffins which even sport the English flag.
Another development has been the emergence of the 'death cafe',
gatherings which are held in different locations every week, with over 5,000
set up so far across the country. If you wandered over to the death cafe that
has been arranged today in Croydon, you will meet like-minded people, drinking
tea, eating cake and discussing death. The aim of the Death Cafe is to
'increase awareness of death to help people make the most of their (finite)
lives.'
