Some families in Spain are moving away from conventional cemeteries and choosing ceremonies at sea or in forests. One option is a sunset ceremony on a small boat, with music and sometimes dolphins nearby; another is depositing ashes in a forest alongside seeds intended to grow into trees. The choices are legal only when the relevant authorizations and environmental rules are respected.
Spanish state regulation does not impose a single destination for ashes. It allows burial in an authorized funeral space, placement in a columbarium, keeping them at home or scattering them where permitted. Scattering must comply with each autonomous community's rules and with environmental regulations for the area. The law also prohibits scattering ashes on public roads.
Doing so without the required authorizations can be expensive. Spanish legislation does not set a fixed fine for the practice, but penalties can reach €750 for certain minor infractions and up to €60,000 in some cases linked to environmental rules, such as unauthorized discharges into the marine environment. The amount depends on the location and the applicable regulations.
Companies with the necessary permits offer ceremonies in nature. Cenizas Mediterráneo, for example, offers funeral ceremonies at sea lasting about an hour on small boats. It operates in 25 Spanish ports, from Girona to Marbella, according to partner Albert Vidal. To carry out the activity, the company had to obtain authorization from the maritime captaincies where it operates. Vidal said a responsible declaration must be submitted and a report showing compatibility with the marine strategy for the area is required. The procedure also requires biodegradable urns, generally made of salt and sand, and allows only petals to be thrown, not whole flowers.
The service costs about €675 when a family reserves a boat exclusively for an hour, excluding cremation. Cremation can cost around €4,000, according to María Hermida, spokesperson for the funeral company Pazy, although the price varies depending on the funeral plan contracted by the deceased. In the Balearic Islands, the price rises to about €800 because of boat-related costs, Vidal said. The ceremony allows music chosen by relatives to be played via Bluetooth and sometimes includes champagne. A cheaper option is depositing the ashes without the family present for about €295. In both cases the company provides a map with the coordinates of the scattering site, although marine currents move the ashes.
For those who prefer a farewell among trees, companies offer so-called ash forests. Ana González, co-founder of Recordarium, a natural funeral space in Méntrida (Toledo), said families can bury ashes in biodegradable urns next to a tree or scatter them in one of the forest's natural areas, such as its two lakes or vineyards. To launch the project, González said she and her partner Fernanda Matoses had to obtain authorizations from different administrations and bodies, from the Environment department and local forest services to the Hydrographic Confederation and those responsible for mortuary health.
Prices depend on the option chosen. Burying ashes next to a tree ranges from €699 to €2,649, depending on the tree selected by the family. Scattering them anywhere in the forest costs €249. Neither option includes cremation in the final price.
González and Vidal say the environmental impact of these alternatives is minimal. Vidal said the report prepared to obtain the maritime captaincies' authorizations concluded that the impact was almost nil and that the main footprint of the activity comes from fuel consumption by the boats. He said the boats navigate very slowly out of respect for the family, so consumption is low. González said the only polluting factor throughout the process is transporting the deceased in the hearse. She said the forest has net negative CO₂ emissions and that, with more than 3,000 trees, it is absorbing about 66 tonnes of CO₂ this year.
There are no statistical data comparing the environmental impact of these alternatives with that of a traditional funeral. Cremation also generates polluting emissions: 236,774 incinerations were carried out in Spain in 2025, 52.97% of all deaths, according to the 2026 Radiography of the funeral sector produced by the National Association of Funeral Services Panasef. Alejandro Quinzán, a spokesperson for the association, acknowledged that cremation ovens emit particles and substances such as mercury and dioxins, though he maintained that their levels are very low and that the particles released are tiny compared with other industries. Ecoembes, the non-profit company founded by packagers and distributors to manage recycling, says in a publication on its website that, in general, the environmental impact of ashes from cremation is lower than that of a traditional burial.
Sources: El País Sociedad.