The Western Australian board, unable to meet demand for services for larger clients, purchases second oversized cremator and plans third for 2016

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Rising obesity levels in Western Australia have prompted the Metropolitan Cemeteries Board to buy two oversize cremators to keep pace with the demand for burial services for larger clients.

The statutory authority installed its first oversize cremator in 2012, but has been unable to keep pace with demand. A second oversized cremator has been installed at Karrakatta cemetery, the largest public cemetery in Perth, and a third is planned for Rockingham in early 2016.

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The larger cremators can handle a combined weight of up to 350kg. The board’s chief executive, Peter Deague, told Guardian Australia that meant they could cater to anyone who weighed up to 250kg, as a coffin for a person of that size usually weighed about 100kg.

“Which is an enormous amount of weight, when you think about it, but that’s the demand,” Deague said.

The existing oversize cremator at Pinnaroo Valley memorial park was booked solid, he said, the high demand compounded by the extra time needed to cremate a 350kg coffin, which takes about two hours compared with 90 minutes for a standard size coffin.

Cemeteries throughout Australia are facing similar demand. Many have now changed their specifications to upgrade old cremators with the 350kg model, the largest on the market.

They cannot be built any bigger, as the lifting machinery and conveyor belt used to ferry the coffin into the 1,000C kiln are not designed to handle anything heavier.

It is not always enough. The Metropolitan Cemeteries Board has turned down one request for a cremation where the combined weight was 530kg.

“I would like to think this is plateauing and it is not getting worse, and probably what we are seeing at the moment is the peak of the demand,” Deague said. “Statistically Australians are overweight, but overweight doesn’t mean 200kg. What we are talking about is the extreme only, you would hate to think this is increasing.”

It’s a sad indictment on our society. And we are at the end of the line Peter Deague

The proportion of Australian adults who are overweight or obese grew by 10 percentage points between 1995 and 2011, and now stands at 63%, according to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics data, published in 2013.

An analysis of that data by the National Health Performance Authority shows the south coastal region of Perth has one of the highest rates of obesity in the country, with 38% of adults qualifying as obese, compared with 28% nationally.

According to that breakdown, more than 70% of adults in WA’s midwest, Goldfields, south west and southern metropolitan regions – basically the southern two-thirds of the state – are overweight or obese.

“It’s a sad indictment on our society,” Deague said. “And we are at the end of the line.”

Cremation is a more popular funeral option in Australia, preferred to burial in about 80% of cases.

But burial provides another set of difficulties for the families of obese deceased. They are usually required to buy a double plot, which adds to the expense, and, Deague said, is quite difficult to dig in Perth’s sandy soil, which has a tendency to collapse if not shored up.

Then, depending on the weight of the coffin, a crane has to be hired to lower it into the grave. That prompts a slight change of funeral procedure – the coffin is usually lowered into the grave before the ceremony gets under way.

Deague said: “As you can appreciate, it doesn’t look the very best to have a crane there to lower the coffin into the grave.”

Not everyone who requests a double size grave is obese. Some, Deague said, simply request a larger coffin as a matter of “personal choice”. But for those who are trying to make burial arrangements for a larger loved one, it adds an extra layer of anguish to the funeral arrangements.

“It becomes quite expensive to cater for these bigger coffins and buy two burial plots … it [obesity] is expensive all the way through,” Deague said.