They dig everything up and the gravestone is returned to you. You also have the option to extend your contract and continue renting, which I what I do for my family members.
They mostly exhume the remains and burn what is left.
I know a landscape architect who designs graveyards. His main concern was always the ground. Because some grounds conserve the bodies instead of discompose them. So, if they dig them up after 25 years, they are still very much intact. Another issue is the coffin itself. Nowadays they put so much paint on it, it does not decompose, too. And last but not least there are concerns regarding ground water. Humans collect quite amounts of chemicals like pesticides, teflon, led over their lifetime and are even slightly radioactive. You don’t want their remains to poison ground water.
So, he and his engineers develop systems to speed up the process. That after 25 years, only the bones are left. And that also all water from the graveyard is treated before it gets released.
The 25 years timeframe itself marks the duration of a generation. Statistically, you die around 25 years after your parents. And your kids die 25 years after you. So, there is one grave needed for your direct successor lineage. And ground in Switzerland is quite expensive. Ashes to ashes, like they say.
Typically the only remove the top 20-30cm after 20-25 years. The human remains are deeper and won’t be touched. Bodies are usually buried 120cm or deeper.
After the top 20-30cm are removed (tombstones can be collected by the relatives, otherwise they are made into gravel) usually there will simply be grass for a couple of years.
Then another person who was cremated can be buried “on top” of the original grave (because cinerary urns aren’t put as deep as coffins). So the human remains of the person who was buried in the coffin is still down there but now has the urn of somebody who had a cremation a bit higher in the grave.
Until a new coffin can be buried in the same space it’s min. 60 years. After 60 years you shouldn’t have any remains of the “original” body, not even bones, because nowadays cemetries are constructed in a way that benefits quick decomposition. (So the ancient bones that archaeologists dig out are there only if the ground conditions are very bad for decomposition. Should’t happen in a well constructed cemetry nowadays. However every now and then you hear that it happens and then the have to ‘renovate’ the cemetry.)
As you can see from the different comments, there might be some differences depending on the canton.
In Zürich: The legal rest time for graves is 20 years, minimum depth is 1.5m (adults) and 0.6m (urns). After the rest time graves can be reused, either by removing any remains or burring them even deeper.
In practice thou, they simply remove the top layer and leave everthing in the ground with the idea to leave the dead undisturbed as long as possible. After some years/decades they use it again for urn graves and after in total about 60-80 years the area is reused for regular graves.
In Italy you “own” the place for coffins and urns for 50 years, and for 99 years for family tombs. That explains why cemeteries are so small in Switzerland
How about at least censoring the phone number?
We found this out when we moved here and went to visit my husband’s grandparents grave and it was gone … was honestly shocking.
When I die, I’d much rather have myself ground up for mulch or cremated and released in a place I had loved.
I find the removing of people from their grave for a new spot highly disturbing even if it does make economic and environmental sense. 😉
There is a company called Recompose which turns your body into compost in about a month, and then you can be shovelled into the earth around a tree, for instance. So far it is only legal in Washington state. I hope by the time I pop my clogs it will be legal wherever I am living. At least that way you end up being useful.
9 comments
They dig everything up and the gravestone is returned to you. You also have the option to extend your contract and continue renting, which I what I do for my family members.
They mostly exhume the remains and burn what is left.
I know a landscape architect who designs graveyards. His main concern was always the ground. Because some grounds conserve the bodies instead of discompose them. So, if they dig them up after 25 years, they are still very much intact. Another issue is the coffin itself. Nowadays they put so much paint on it, it does not decompose, too. And last but not least there are concerns regarding ground water. Humans collect quite amounts of chemicals like pesticides, teflon, led over their lifetime and are even slightly radioactive. You don’t want their remains to poison ground water.
So, he and his engineers develop systems to speed up the process. That after 25 years, only the bones are left. And that also all water from the graveyard is treated before it gets released.
The 25 years timeframe itself marks the duration of a generation. Statistically, you die around 25 years after your parents. And your kids die 25 years after you. So, there is one grave needed for your direct successor lineage. And ground in Switzerland is quite expensive. Ashes to ashes, like they say.
Typically the only remove the top 20-30cm after 20-25 years. The human remains are deeper and won’t be touched. Bodies are usually buried 120cm or deeper.
After the top 20-30cm are removed (tombstones can be collected by the relatives, otherwise they are made into gravel) usually there will simply be grass for a couple of years.
Then another person who was cremated can be buried “on top” of the original grave (because cinerary urns aren’t put as deep as coffins). So the human remains of the person who was buried in the coffin is still down there but now has the urn of somebody who had a cremation a bit higher in the grave.
Until a new coffin can be buried in the same space it’s min. 60 years. After 60 years you shouldn’t have any remains of the “original” body, not even bones, because nowadays cemetries are constructed in a way that benefits quick decomposition. (So the ancient bones that archaeologists dig out are there only if the ground conditions are very bad for decomposition. Should’t happen in a well constructed cemetry nowadays. However every now and then you hear that it happens and then the have to ‘renovate’ the cemetry.)
As you can see from the different comments, there might be some differences depending on the canton.
In Zürich: The legal rest time for graves is 20 years, minimum depth is 1.5m (adults) and 0.6m (urns). After the rest time graves can be reused, either by removing any remains or burring them even deeper.
In practice thou, they simply remove the top layer and leave everthing in the ground with the idea to leave the dead undisturbed as long as possible. After some years/decades they use it again for urn graves and after in total about 60-80 years the area is reused for regular graves.
In Italy you “own” the place for coffins and urns for 50 years, and for 99 years for family tombs. That explains why cemeteries are so small in Switzerland
How about at least censoring the phone number?
We found this out when we moved here and went to visit my husband’s grandparents grave and it was gone … was honestly shocking.
When I die, I’d much rather have myself ground up for mulch or cremated and released in a place I had loved.
I find the removing of people from their grave for a new spot highly disturbing even if it does make economic and environmental sense. 😉
There is a company called Recompose which turns your body into compost in about a month, and then you can be shovelled into the earth around a tree, for instance. So far it is only legal in Washington state. I hope by the time I pop my clogs it will be legal wherever I am living. At least that way you end up being useful.
They make Satan’s Fondue with it