Crematoriums in Australia are installing super-size furnaces to deal with the super-size coffins needed to contain super-size corpses, news reports said on Sunday.
”The coffins are getting bigger and we were finding it hard to fit them in, so it was better if we got a bigger cremator so the coffins fit in comfortably,” InvoCare general manager Armen Mikaelian told the Sun-Herald. InvoCare is Australia’s biggest cemetery operator.
More than half of all Australian men are overweight or obese and almost half of all women. The Sydney-based Centre for Overweight and Obesity warned earlier this year that 88% of males and 61% of females born between 1966 and 1970 would be overweight or obese by 2010.
Last year, the Funeral Directors’ Association advised its members to insist on heavy-lifting gear to lower coffins into graves rather than use the traditional ropes and pulleys. Mourners at funerals were also urged not to try to shoulder coffins because the weight of some coffins had reached dangerous levels.
”It’s become a manual handling issue,” Anglican and Cemeteries Trust general manager Derek Williams told the Age newspaper. ”We’re finding now that people are generally getting bigger, and obviously so are the coffins to accommodate them.” — Sapa-dpa