Exploring Alternative Burial Processes to Reduce Demand on Land to Build Columbaria

7 Ms Carrie Tan asked the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment (a) whether the Ministry has considered innovative ways to process the remains of those who have passed on so as to reduce the demand for land to build columbaria in the future; and (b) whether approaches such as allowing ash scattering around trees and resizing of urns and niches have been and will be considered.

8 Ms Carrie Tan asked the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment in view of the ageing population and projected rise in death rates, whether the Ministry will consider channelling resources towards efforts to change the mindsets of Singaporeans and destigmatise after-death facilities and amenities, such as through public communications and Forward SG dialogues.

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment (Mr Baey Yam Keng) (for the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment): Mr Speaker, may I have your permission to answer Parliamentary Question Nos 7 and 8 on today's Order Paper?

Mr Speaker: Yes, you do.

Mr Baey Yam Keng: I thank the Member for raising the issue, which is an important topic, given our rapidly ageing population. Annual deaths in Singapore are expected to increase, from about 25,000 today to about 60,000 by the 2060s.

The National Environment Agency (NEA), therefore, works closely with land use planning agencies such as the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) to plan ahead for more after-death facilities, such as funeral parlours, wake halls and columbaria, to ensure adequate capacity. With an increasingly ageing population, such facilities will inevitably be a more prevalent feature of our urban landscape.

Singaporeans, by and large, accept the need for such facilities, which are developed in a way that is sensitive to and integrated with the surrounding community. For example, the Mount Vernon Funeral Parlour Complex, which is being built, will be integrated with a nearby park with lush greenery to provide a visual screen.

Today, most bereaved families will opt to cremate the body of their loved ones if the deceased's religion does not require burial and will typically place cremated ashes in niches.

To provide more options for the public, in May 2021, NEA introduced Inland Ash Scattering (IAS) at the Garden of Peace in Choa Chu Kang Cemetery as an additional option for managing cremated ashes. IAS requires less land compared to traditional niches and the fee for IAS is also lower in comparison to niche fees.

Since its introduction, there has been increasing demand for IAS, with the number of applications increasing steadily from about 900 in 2021 to about 2,000 in 2023. A second IAS facility, the Garden of Serenity, is being constructed together with the new Mandai Crematorium Complex, which will make IAS more accessible when it is opened in 2025.

Besides IAS and niches, families can also place ashes of departed loved ones at home or scatter them at sea. NEA will continue to study methods of intensifying land use and design at future facilities to minimise the land required and optimise land usage.

But as the Member rightly pointed out, the acceptance of after-death facilities in their neighbourhood or even some distance from where they live vary. More can be done to improve the acceptability of after-death facilities and all of us – in this Chamber and beyond – can do our part.

This starts with raising awareness of end-of-life planning and post-death matters. To create awareness and make it easier for individuals to plan ahead, My Legacy@LifeSG was launched in 2020 as a one-stop portal on end-of-life planning and post-death matters. There are also ongoing efforts to work with stakeholders, such as the Singapore Hospice Council, to engage the public to normalise conversations on death and dying. These conversations are necessary, although they can sometimes be difficult.

Beyond destigmatising after-death facilities and explaining why such facilities are needed, it is also important to understand and address the concerns that stakeholders have, especially when actual sites have been identified for development of such facilities. This way, when our loved ones pass on at some point, we can be assured that they can be provided with a dignified sending-off and a proper resting place.

Mr Speaker: Ms Carrie Tan.

Ms Carrie Tan (Nee Soon): Speaker, I appreciate Senior Parliamentary Secretary Baey Yam Keng's response. I think it lacks no emphasis that Singapore is land scarce and we have an ageing population, and my residents are very fully well aware of that. But they also would like to ask the Ministry, is it not all the more imperative that the Ministry needs to take more urgency to look at more innovative and sustainable ways of treating our loved ones' remains, rather than to fall back on the conventional and convenient solution of concentrating the niches and columbaria in one area?

I think with announcement of the Mandai Columbarium complex, where about half of Singapore's niches are going to be located in the north, residents are expecting that the Ministry can do more to accelerate the conversations on this and accelerate different solutions to see how we can decentralise niches, so that this disamenity does not need to be unfairly concentrated in one area, but can be seen as an amenity that is accessible to all Singaporeans.

Mr Baey Yam Keng: Mr Speaker, there are currently about 70 private and Government columbaria at different locations across the island of Singapore, it is not just in the north. The Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment (MSE) and NEA work closely with the Ministry of National Development (MND) and URA to safeguard sites for the development of after-death facilities in the medium and long term. And this is to support the needs of all Singaporeans. And these sites are distributed across the whole of Singapore.

When developing the after-death facilities, we do prioritise the design to be sensitive. As I have mentioned, an example is the Mount Vernon Funeral Parlour Complex with lush greenery around, so that it provides a screen and is visually pleasant in the surrounding. In particular, the after-death facilities that are provided by the Government are also intended to be simple and secular to serve the needs of all Singaporeans. The services provided at these facilities are also much cheaper than those provided by other providers which are mostly affiliated to places of worship or privately owned commercial entities.

We will continue to look at other options and ways of managing our loved ones' ashes and also in terms of the models of columbaria and designs. This will help us to maximise and also intensify land use. We will also look at other practices overseas and assess its suitability and more importantly, public acceptance of such new technologies, new ways and innovation in Singapore's context.

Mr Speaker: Last supplementary question. Ms Carrie Tan.

Ms Carrie Tan: Again, I thank Senior Parliamentary Secretary Baey Yam Keng for his valiant efforts to explain these needs. I would like to emphasise, suggest and also secure commitment from the Ministry that they will accelerate efforts to look into the other and innovative ways of treating after-death remains, such as looking into options like scattering ashes around trees and potentially even looking into solutions such as cremation diamonds, which are all solutions that require very little space and would be more viable and tenable for the long run in Singapore.

Mr Baey Yam Keng: Yes, we are aware of options, like scattering ashes at trees. These are things that we will need to look at and how to turn ashes into diamonds or other things that people can keep for remembrance. I think these are innovative ideas. But as I have said, when the Government looks at providing such services or facilities, we have to make them affordable for most, if not all Singaporeans. Of course, if there are private operators who are offering such different types of services, we can work with them and they can offer these more interesting options for Singaporeans.