Page A14
SEPTEMBER 2015
FUNERAL HOME & CEMETERY NEWS
S ec t i on A
By Gary Finch
OSHA
Compliance
The Tiny Approach to OSHA
Compliance
The Hazard Communication Standard had by
1987, required businesses to collect and maintain
Material Safety Data Sheets on the hazardous prod-
ucts to which their employees were exposed. After
29 years, MSDS’s are being phased out.
We are presently in a phase in – phase out pe-
riod where employers have a choice of using the
MSDS or SDS. The SDS, short for Safety Data
Sheet, serves the same purpose as the MSDS, but as
a UN approved form, it is recognized by hundreds
of countries. As such, it will simplify the regula-
tory process that manufacturers endure when they
export products in the global market. Supposedly,
information conveyed on both forms is similar.
Most funeral homes were able to retain their MSDS
file in a 3-ring binder that was two to three inches
thick. I assumed similar binders would be needed
to house the SDS file. It would be a massive under-
statement to say my assumption was wrong. The av-
erage MSDS file was one to three pages. The average
SDS file that conveyed the same basic information
is ten pages. I don’t know why it is longer.
A typical funeral home will have a minimum of
25 products that require an SDS. If they have sev-
eral embalmers, the number of products might
reach one hundred. Do the math. One hundred ten
page files require two reams (1000 sheets) of paper.
Add alpha tabs and a 20 page chemical list and you
need four 3-ring binders to house your SDS file.
“Long story short.” We emailed customers the
links to every major supplier’s SDS page. In some
cases, we mailed what is called a thumb drive. A
thumb drive is about the size of a Bic® lighter and
much smaller than four 3-ring binders. Virtually
any hazardous mortuary product can be accessed
in a couple of clicks.
There are a few shortfalls. You have to teach ex-
posed employees how to access the electronic SDS.
Perhaps you have a non-English speaking employee
working in maintenance. You may need to identify
the products those employees are exposed to and
use a paper SDS to house them. You should try to
find the appropriate foreign language version of the
SDS if the employee cannot read English.
Notwithstanding that, the thumb drive or the
links pasted in your hard drive render the SDS file
that would be housed in the 3-ring binder obso-
lete. In most cases it is no longer needed. That is
simple OSHA compliance at its best.
“Cremation isn’t just a trend – it’s a service that funer-
al professionals like me have been offering for years,”
said NFDA president
Robert Moore, IV,
CFSP, CCO.
“Whether a family chooses a viewing and funeral before
cremation or a memorial service after, our duty is to help
families understand their options so they can gather to
honor the life of their loved one in a meaningful way.”
Moore continued, “The 2015 NFDA Cremation
and Burial Report will help NFDA members under-
stand consumer preferences so we can better support
the families we serve.”
In addition to statistical information for the United
States and countries around the world for which re-
liable data is available, the 2015 NFDA Cremation
and Burial Report also contains data about consumer
perceptions of end-of-life ceremonies and cremation.
There are many reasons why consumers choose cre-
mation, including cost considerations, environmen-
tal concerns, fewer religious prohibitions, and chang-
ing consumer preferences, such as a desire for less
ritualized funerals.
The majority of families who choose cremation
also commemorate their loved one’s life: 28 percent
choose to have a funeral with viewing before crema-
tion and 37 percent have a memorial service after.
When talking about their own funerals, more than
one-half of adults 40 and older would encourage
their loved ones to plan a funeral or memorial cer-
emony. Only 17 percent of adults would discourage
their loved ones from commemorating their life.
The state and national death, cremation and burial
projections contained in the 2015 NFDA Cremation
and Burial Report were compiled with the assistance
of experts from the University of Wisconsin – Mad-
ison Applied Population Laboratory Department of
Community and Environmental Sociology. Other
findings presented in this report are from proprietary
NFDA research studies, such as the 2015 Consum-
er Awareness & Preferences Study and 2015 NFDA
General Price List Survey.
The 2015 NFDA Cremation and Burial Report:
Research, Statistics and Projections are part of the as-
sociation’s effort to offering cutting-edge cremation
tools and resources to funeral professionals. As the
leading and largest funeral service association in the
world, NFDA offers comprehensive cremation-relat-
ed education; the profession’s leading cremation certi-
fication program, the Certified Crematory Operator™
(CCO) program; a cremation consultation hotline;
informational resources, such as the NFDA Guide
to Selected OSHA Standards for Funeral Homes &
Crematories and Opening a Crematory - Frequently
Asked Questions for Funeral Directors; and more.
NFDA is the world’s leading and largest funeral ser-
vice association, serving 19,700 individual members
who represent more than 10,000 funeral homes in
the United States and 39 countries around the world.
NFDA is the trusted leader, beacon for ethics and
the strongest advocate for the profession. NFDA is
headquartered in Brookfield, Wisconsin, and has an
office in Washington, DC. The 2015 NFDA Crema-
2015 NFDA Cremation and Burial Report Released
BROOKFIELD,WI—
The national rate of cremation is
projected to surpass that of burial in 2015 according to
a report recently released by
the National Funeral Di-
rectors Association
(NFDA). The 2015 NFDA Crema-
tion and Burial Report: Research, Statistics and Projec-
tions features statistics and in-depth analysis of consumer
attitudes toward cremation.
According to the 2013 final data in the report, the rate of
cremation was 45.4 percent and the rate of burial was 48.7
percent. By the end of 2015, the rates of cremation and burial
are projected to be 48.5 percent and 45.6 percent respectively.
Should the 2015 projections bear out; the cremation rate will
have increased by more than 50 percent over the last 10 years.
2005
final
2010
final
2013
final
2015
projected
2020
projected
2030
projected
Cremation
(%)
32.3 40.4 45.4 48.5
56.2
71.0
Burial (%)
61.4 53.3 48.7 45.6
37.9
23.2
