The first government-approved pet cemetery in Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality will be established by the end of this year.
A local agricultural products company, Dongfang Chuhe, cooperated with Southwest University and invested a total of 12.5 million yuan ($2 million) in the pet cemetery project that will also include a pet park, a pet hotel and a pet play center, the Chongqing Evening News reported Saturday. The whole project is likely to be finished in three years.
The bodies of pets will be cremated and then their ashes will fertilize the plants growing in the cemetery, according to the project manager.
The cemetery will promote environmentally-friendly funeral services, such as tree funerals and grass funerals - in which the animal's ashes are buried under the roots of a tree or grass. To identify their dead pets, pet owners are allowed to hang signs on the plants where the ashes were buried.
Each plot in the pet cemetery will be sold for around 2,000 yuan to 5,000 yuan and will be valid for 10 years. The cemetery and its services have been approved by the local government, the manager said.
The number of pet dogs in Chongqing increased from 1 million in 2008 to 1.5 million in 2014, according to local dog industry association.
An average of 20,000 dogs die every year in Chongqing, and many dead dogs are either discarded in garbage bins or buried randomly on hills by owners. A few companies have been running pet cremation services for some time, but many such companies are suspected of illegal land use.
