People's ashes left uncollected for years

The Canterbury Star


City crematoriums and funeral directors are storing the cremated remains of hundreds of people whose relatives fail to collect them.

The macabre reality of uncollected ashes is part of a national trend, with some firms in the country holding the remains of up to 1000 people.

Many funeral directors are now being forced to put measures in place to ensure they are not holding onto ashes for families for long periods of time.

In Christchurch, crematoriums storing ashes include the Canterbury Crematorium in Linwood, which currently stores 545 sets of ashes, and the Harewood Memorial Gardens and Crematorium, which holds 488.

Most funeral directors in the city could also hold anywhere from 10 to 100 sets of ashes they have collected for families at any one time.

Nationally, between 60% and 70% of people are now cremated rather than buried.

Funeral Directors’ Association vice president Tony Garing, from John Rhind Funeral Directors in Christchurch, said the number of ashes left uncollected was astounding.


He said the onus was on the families to make a decision about what to do with the ashes, and many funeral directors would often collect ashes from the crematoriums on the relatives’ behalf.

However, because of the logistics of storing large numbers of ashes, many funeral directors were now not collecting them unless they had clear instructions what to do with them.

Mr Garing said they currently held well over 100 sets of ashes in their storeroom, some dating to the 1960s.

“If you went to any funeral home you would find ashes,” he said. “It’s a very emotive thing, that’s the problem.

“It is also very hard to contact families. Many (contacted) think it was dealt with years ago.”

Cremation Society of Canterbury manager Barbara Terry said common reasons for people failing to collect “cremains” was that it was too traumatising, the deceased had no relatives or friends left, or people may want the ashes to be held until a surviving spouse passed away so the ashes could be buried together.

Some people also waited until the anniversary of a death or a birthday to collect ashes.

Mrs Terry said a couple had come into the Cremation Society earlier this year looking for information on their genealogy, and were horrified to find a grandmother’s ashes had being waiting for collection for nearly 30 years.

“They were horrified,” she said.

Mrs Terry said the “respectful thing” for any deceased was for a decision to be made on what to do with their remains.

“You don’t arrange a burial then leave the casket beside the grave and walk away,” she said.

But the reality was, the decision to collect ashes was up to the families.

“There are no rules. They (the ashes) are in safekeeping. We do take the guardianship of ashes very seriously.”

She said all ashes were meticulously stored in an urn and given an identification number.

“Every five to 10 years, depending how the volumes are looking, we try again to contact families. If we have no success we inter the ashes into a grid in a set location,” she said.

However, these could be retrieved if someone came to collect them.