I had a pleasant visit to our ‘Kapiti Crematorium’ from a newly assigned ‘Resource Advisor – Environmental Regulation, Greater Wellington (Regional Council)’ last week.

The purpose of the visit was to familiarise herself with our Kapiti Crematorium facility prior to our next 5-yearly review, which starts from 1 July and finishes on 30 June 2025. We have a 20-year air discharge consent (with 16 years left), requiring air and water to be tested every five years.
She was surprised to find that our particular consent had many exemptions, including the clean burning of plastic handles and even a special exemption for cardboard caskets. She was also surprised to learn that we are the default choice for some other Funeral Directors with Cremators, especially for large/difficult cases. Why all this ‘special treatment’? Well, early on, we conducted additional air testing after our original consent to certify our modern ‘hot hearth’ cremator. This proved that the design and additional air pollution controls that were added could mitigate more air pollutants than other units. In addition to this, we also have a direct monitored link to the manufacturer in America, ‘Matthews’, who can watch live and remotely take control of our system, via the computer that operates it.

The unit’s ‘smart’ pollution control system includes a camera that points through a sight-glass in the base of the short stack. This detects any smoke and mitigates it in seconds, via the computer, which adjusts the air and fuel without us lifting a finger. It is such a smart system that we can even turn the unit on remotely with our smartphone before we arrive, saving on wasted time and excess fuel.
Our smart, clean-burning crematorium is situated in the beautiful Awa Tapu Cemetery on Valley Road, Paraparaumu. The chapel looks down the tree-lined valley to the view of the north end of Kapiti Island and out to the ocean.

If you want to know more about our crematorium or come to see it for yourself, just give us a call to make a time to chat. We usually run two crematorium tours a year, in the spring and summer, so keep an eye out for these, or let us know your details and we will advise when the next one is running. Kapiti Crematorium is locally owned and operated by Kapiti Coast Funeral Home.”