The government announced in parliament on Monday that it will shortly be issuing an expression of interest to extend the burial area at Addolorata Cemetery in Marsa.

This is, of course, very important. Malta is different to most of Europe. In our country, we are buried in crypts and family tombs. In most other countries, where space is not at so much of a premium, people are buried individually in graves. In some cases, spouses are buried one on top of the other, with the soft earth not being a barrier to digging deeper to allow more coffins to rest at different depths.

But in Malta this is not possible, mostly due to the physical properties that our small islands have, or rather, do not have. It is good that the government is exploring ways to expend the cemetery, but we also have to look into the possibility of extending other small graveyards, such as the ones in Mosta and Siggiewi.

But we also need to increasingly look at other forms of burial. A while back, the Church had said that it was open to the idea of cremation, but this seems to have gone by the wayside. There are no cremation facilities in Malta, as yet, but it is known that a few cremations take place abroad, and the ashes are then brought to Malta for burial or scattering.

This, of course, is not feasible, even though the service is available in Sicily. When it comes to a death, family and loved ones want to be in their own country to celebrate the life of the person they have lost.

But what happens if graces – which are already far too expensive – become that costly that people will not be able to afford them. When people are cremated, sometimes the urn is buried in a much smaller plot, and sometimes the ashes may be scattered at sea, or even at the favourite spot.

But there are other alternatives in the ever evolving world that we live in, and many people, especially the younger generation, no longer find the subject taboo and are happy to explore new ideas.

One of these is the compaction of ashes into fertilizer, which is bound to a tree sapling or seed. That tree can then be planted and allowed to grow into a living memorial of the person who has passed. Given that we barely have any trees on our islands, this could well be a very viable option, both  in terms of respecting the memory of those who have passed, and also in giving back something to those who are still in the land of the living.

There are also some other wacky, yet real, alternatives. Your ashes can be turned into a set of pencils, you could even be turned into a vinyl record, or be compressed into a diamond. You could even become the seed for a new marine reed. Perhaps weirdest of all, you can be used to 3-D print objects.

Some of these ideas are quite far out there, but it is clear that we certainly need to find some alternatives before we run out of grave space.