Chinanews, Qingdao, May 17 - The 1st Ecofriendly Graveyard¹ Building Conference was held in Qingdao on May 15, 2007, with funeral undertakers from all over China participating. According to the information released at the conference, about 20 million graves are built in China every year, covering nearly 16,500 acres of land.

Obviously, it is necessary to introduce an eco-friendly way of burial, as graves not only take up land, but also consume large quantities of building materials (including many non-renewable resources), both of which can be disastrous² to China, a country lacking in farmland.

Even during their life time, some wealthy people have had luxurious³ graves built for themselves, causing severe waste of land and resources.

It will a trend to build eco-friendly public graveyards⁴ in the future, as it is the only way to find a balance between meeting the needs of the general public and protecting the ecoenvironment.