Research

We have surveyed 5 funeral stalls, going to each one and asking how things are done.

Five stalls is a starting point, not a picture of the whole industry. For scale, NEA’s 2020 dataset lists 22 licensed funeral parlours, and 19 of them are in three areas: Sin Ming (8), Toa Payoh (6) and Geylang Bahru (5).

What we learn feeds into our work with funeral providers. More than 10 have adopted green burial alternatives so far.

NEA puts deaths at about 26,500 in 2025 and says about 82% of people who die here are cremated. By our sums, that is roughly 21,700 cremations a year. NEA expects about 40,000 deaths a year by 2040, which would mean about 32,800 cremations at the same share.

• Carbon

  NEA’s 2025/2026 report gives 3,343 tonnes of CO₂e from gas fuel in FY2025, up from 3,042 the year before, and says this comes from fuel used in cremation. Divided by our 21,700 cremations, that is at least 150 kg each. This is a rough, low-end estimate: it counts fuel only, and our total includes the two private crematoria, which NEA’s figure does not cover. It falls between the two overseas estimates on our Green burial page.

• Air pollutants

  NEA also publishes test readings for its two crematoria. All of the FY2025 readings were within the limits.

  mg/Nm³	Mandai	Mandai North	Limit
  Particulates	16.8	8.0	< 50
  SOx	3.7	1.0	< 1,700
  NOx	280.1	179.7	< 400
  HCl	0.5	0.8	< 200
  CO	3.9	1.6	< 250

  NO_x is the closest to its limit. At Mandai it has moved between 86.0 and 362.8 since FY2018, according to NEA’s reports.

• What is not published

  We found no published mercury or dioxin readings for Singapore’s crematoria, and no emissions figures for the two private ones. These gaps matter: a 2020 Canadian fact sheet names dioxins, mercury and fine particles as the crematorium pollutants of most concern.

• What funeral providers can change

  The same fact sheet says mercury comes from dental fillings, while dioxins can form when organic compounds react with chlorine in materials such as plastics. It says plastics or polystyrene in a casket or among personal items affect emissions, and that best practice is to avoid PVC, metals and chlorinated compounds in coffins and fittings. Those choices are made before a cremation, by families and funeral providers.

After cremation, ashes can be kept in a columbarium niche, scattered in a garden or scattered at sea.

• Columbarium niches

  NEA’s three columbaria hold about 296,000 niches: about 147,000 at Choa Chu Kang, 133,000 at Mandai and 16,000 at Yishun. A standard niche costs $500, and a family niche costs $900.

• Scattering gardens

  Inland scattering costs $320. Its share of cremations rose from about 7% in 2022 to about 12% in 2025, and the government has said it has no plans to make it the default. It uses less land than niches, but the gardens fill up too. In 2024, NEA began moving built-up ash soil out of four lanes at the Garden of Peace so they could be used again.

• Scattering at sea

  Sea scattering happens at one designated site, 3.2 km east of Raffles Lighthouse, and plastics and synthetic materials must stay out of the water. In an Institute of Policy Studies study cited by NEA, 42% of respondents preferred scattering to storing ashes: 27% chose the sea and 15% chose inland gardens.

• What is not traceable yet

  NEA’s 2025/2026 report describes a QR-based system at Mandai Crematorium that tracks critical steps across cremation and ash collection. After collection, the public record thins out. We found no public breakdown of how many ashes end up in niches, private columbaria or the sea.

Sources accessed on 31 October 2026. Figures from news reports are NEA figures as reported by Mothership. FY means NEA’s financial year. Where this page says “we found no”, the data may exist but was not in the public sources we searched.