Hong Kong pet funerals aim to avoid landfill sites
As the owner of a dog shelter in Hong Kong, it's important to Kent Luk that dogs are treated with compassion both in life and death.
Luk runs the city's Paws Guardian Rescue Shelter and takes care of about 500 strays at a time.
Many of them end up staying with him until their death.
But in Hong Kong, where land is at a premium and burials are expensive Luk says their bodies would end up in a landfill site if given to the government.
Instead, he arranges them a respectful cremation at a nearby animal funeral parlour which charges him a symbolic fee.
"Well, as for cremation, us here in Hong Kong see it as a suitable method. As Hong Kong doesn't have any official, decent and respectful location to place them (after they die). Usually, if you give (dead animals) to the AFCD (Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department), they will end up in the landfill. They will be considered to be animal carcass material. And we don't want them to end up with the trash."
The Rainbow Bridge Cremation Services is one of more than a dozen animal crematoriums in Hong Kong offering so-called 'green burials.'
Other pet owners, like Joey Wong, pay higher rates of up to $180 to have their animals cremated.
For Wong, it was important that her cat Suet Suet, had the same funeral rites as a human.
She also wanted to spread the cat's ashes at the foot of a palm tree on her balcony.
