The Crematory Dilemma: Continued consumer choice vs. the NIMBY attitude

September 25, 2024/Cremation, Regulations/

For over a year and a half Funeral Director Daily has followed the application process of the Evans Funeral Chapel in trying to locate and build a new crematory in the White Marsh area of Baltimore (MD) County. It now appears, because of a zoning change for the land in question, that the ability to place a crematory in that location will not be allowed.

Almost immediately upon the first public hearings for this proposal, according to this article, “. . .residents of White Marsh have remained highly opposed to the idea of a crematory operating within hundreds of feet from their homes. An online petition opposing the Evans Crematory gathered hundreds of signatures. Momentum continued into 2024, when hundreds of yard signs were on display on front yards throughout the White Marsh area.”

There has been plot twists and turns since the original application, but it now appears that the zoning rule change may stop the construction.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take: This type of decision following an application process for a new crematory in a locale is not uncommon. As I research articles for Funeral Director Daily I see many conflicts about potential new crematories facing neighborhood group objections.

In that context one has to ask themselves “Where will new crematories be built? or “Do we presently have enough crematories for present and future use?’

In the September 2024 issue of The Director, published by the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) there is an excellent article about the 2024 NFDA Cremation and Burial Report. There are a lot of statistics in that article that can be used to see where America may be going on future Death Care dispositions. Through that report and some information from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), I’ve came up with some questions about the future.

First of all, in 2023, the CDC reported 3.09 million provisional deaths and the NFDA, in the aforementioned article, reported an estimated 1.872 million cremation dispositions. That’s a cremation percentage of 60.5%. Furthermore, NFDA reports that there are about 3,400 active crematories in the United States — so that is an average of 550 cremations per crematory. Obviously, that is an average. . .and depending on the popuation density that they are located in, some do more cremations and some do less.

Jumping ahead to 2040, data from the NFDA article estimates over 3.7 million American deaths in that year with an estimate of over 2.9 million cremations. That’s a cremation percentage of almost 80% and if America contained the same number of crematories as today, it would mean an average of 869 cremations per crematory.

So, with the consumer’s continuing growing choice for cremation on one hand and the “Not in my back yard” attitude of many on the other hand, will America have enough crematories for this expected upsurge in the raw number of cremations?

Even with the difficulty in getting new crematories built, I think the answer is yes. . . Here’s some of my reasoning:

New crematories are getting better, technology speaking, every day. It’s my guess that process time and emission controls will be better and better. These crematories will eventually replace older ones in the locations that they are already in use.

With decreased process time of new crematories, doing 869 cremations (on average) per year would equal 2.38 cremations per day per crematory. That’s doable. . even with today’s crematories

There will be new crematories built. . . . .most likely there will be challenges with many of these if they are planned to be located in a residential neighborhood. However, I think many funeral homes will not want to challenge neighborhoods (and anger potential clientele) and will locate new crematories in more industrially-zoned areas.

I’m not so sure that we will get to a 80% flame-cremation rate by 2040. We may never get there if water-based alkaline hydrolysis and Natural Organic Reduction (NOR) trend up in the Death Care choices of consumers.

I’m guessing that there will be challenges to build or maintain in certain locales in the future. . . but, in those locales transportation will be available to bring those wanting to be flame-cremated to facilities where that is done.

At the end of the day, my hunch is that there will be no shortage of crematories come 2040 for both the consumer who wants to be flame-cremated and the Death Care companies that want to offer cremation. The location of those crematories, however, may not be as convenient to funeral home operations as they are today as the locales of the operating crematories may be moved out to less residential industrial areas.

More news from the world of Death Care: