Albufeira and Faro will be the first towns in the Algarve to offer cremation services.
Both are expected to be completed in 2020, with the Albufeira facility planned to open in January and Faro’s scheduled for September.
Speaking to national tabloid Correio da Manhã, Albufeira Mayor José Carlos Rolo said that the crematorium represents a €600,000 investment by a building company that will also be managing the facility. The concession contract is for 30 years and the building will be located near the town’s cemetery.
Meantime, the construction of Faro’s crematorium started in October and involves a €1.1 million investment by funeral agency Servilusa.
It will be equipped with a vestibule, toilets, a room where bodies will be prepared for cremation, a farewell room where people will be able to say goodbye to their loved ones, two storage rooms, a cremation furnace and a “pyrolytic incinerator” to destroy cemetery waste. This equipment is viewed as extremely important as “open-air burning” is not allowed, which means this waste is usually buried and ends up contaminating the land.
Most importantly, people will no longer have to travel to the Alentejo or Lisbon for cremation services.
