Eli5 what happens if a cemetery runs out of space to bury bodies?
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It depends on where in the world it happens. In some places where space is at a premium you only have use of the ground for a year or so. The casket is opened and the bones are removed by the family and the grounds space is available again.
A cemetery doesn’t have to take new bodies and many cemeteries are full. What would you do if your car ran out of space for more people?
Depending on where in the world you are, a cemetery plot is not necessarily for lif- uh… forever. Sometimes it is, but sometimes laws allow for disinterment after a set period, sometimes contractually outlines in the purchase agreement. Otherwise cemeteries expand or raise their prices for grave plots, the nature of supply and demand really just means that once one option becomes prohibitively expensive, other options will become more popular.
On that note, funerals and burials are on the decline in the West in general and the US in particular. Fewer people are religious, and a lot of people have learned that the funeral industry is in many ways a giant and expensive scam. Options such as cremation or alternatives to reduce the overall volume of the corpse are increasingly popular while “traditional” burial is declining.
in my country cemeteries have a reasonable monthly/yearly fee that they charge you for your buried loved ones so it can casually keep running if they run out of space, but since it’s government owned they expand it from time to time
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Many years ago, a cemetery bought my uncle’s house so it could expand. Now that many houses cost a million dollars each, it might be too expensive to do that.
A huge problem in the US veteran cemeteries due to the WWII, Korea and Vietnam generations getting older. The Federal Government has partnered with State and Tribal cemeteries to make sure that vets have a final resting place.
Arlington National Cemetery added some more land, but they are starting to plan for when all the plots are full – the plan would be a national memorial/monument.
Well, in the tiny but very densely populated country that I happen to live in that’s called The Netherlands, it works like this:
A grave usually isn’t really bought but rather leased for a period of at least 10 years. After the 10 years are up the lease can be extended for a period of 5-20 years.
Up to three people can be buried in a single grave, stacked on top of each other, with some ground in between. (These people can be total strangers in case it’s a common grave instead of a private one)
Now, to answer your question, to make room for more people they can “shake” the grave. This means they dig up the remains still present and rebury all of them about 50cm below the lowest level. Sometimes they put the remains directly into the ground, sometimes they use a tiny box or bag. The grave now has room for the original amount of people again. It’s important to know that this can only be done after the topmost person has been buried for at least 10 years.
Another option is to simply clear the grave. In that case all the remains are either transferred to a common grave or cremated.
In the cheap acreage area of the Midwest US, they slap the word “Historical” at the front of the cemetery name. Then they open a new cemetery somewhere else.
After a certain number of years, the space is often given to the county’s parks and rec department, and they turn it into a nice place to walk with maybe some sculpture art pieces or monuments to the history of the county.
In my area, they just open up another cemetery somewhere else. A plot at one is purchased and the deed recorded like any other piece of land (but with different rules) so once you’re there you’re there. Cemeteries have protections so that even if they’re abandoned and nobody cares for them, they can’t be built over. We had an interstate rerouted because of one and nobody had been buried there since about 1900.
I’m in the Midwest and land is plentiful, so I’m sure the rules are different. I also didn’t talk about mausoleum interment, which is space leased for a certain number of years, from what I’ve seen.
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