Stuff NZ Reports:

Eight months after opening for business, New Plymouth's natural burial site at Awanui Cemetery remains unused.

The site, which opened in April last year, is one of only two certified natural burial sites in New Zealand.Natural burials use chemically untreated wooden caskets and the corpse is not treated using the usual embalming process.A person who opts for natural burial is buried only a metre below the ground and instead of a headstone to mark their resting place, a native tree or shrub is planted with the aim that the area will eventually become native bush.

The New Plymouth District Council allocated 235 plots to people who wanted to be buried in this environmentally friendly way but as yet no one had taken up the opportunity.

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