Control of pollutants from cremation needed

China should step up the pollution monitoring and control during the cremation of bodies at funeral homes, a report has said.

In a report released on Wednesday, two researchers with the National Research Center for Environmental Analysis and Measures said that the country is in urgent need of a pollution control and management system in the funeral sector as cremation of bodies has posed immense challenges to the ecology and environment.

The two researchers, Yin Huimin and Liu Aimin, said in the report that the pollution of heavy metal and dioxin pollutants should be closely monitored during the cremation process at funeral homes.

China has more than 1700 funeral homes as of 2013, and the emission controls in those institutions are still far from effective, said Qi Xuesen, president of China Funeral Association in a news conference on Wednesday.

Qi said currently the technological input at funeral homes are still far from adequate to control the emissions, and technological input is the only way to reduce emissions.

An investigation jointly conducted by the civil affairs and environmental protection ministries from 2010 to 2014 showed that the cremation machines at funeral homes cannot effectively control the emissions of oxynitride and dioxin pollutants.

Authorities should encourage funeral homes to introduce more environmentally friendly facilities, and environmental protection authorities should include the monitoring of pollutants in the funeral sector in the regular air pollution monitoring process.