Human Composting Wants To Make Death More Green
A new 'deathcare' option will soon be available for those looking to reduce their carbon footprints after they've passed.
Recompose—a company specializing in environmentally friendly burial practices—can take the deceased and turn them into soil.
The first city to offer a Recompose human composting site will be Seattle. The company is hoping to open this location in December 2020.
Just as food composting is environmentally friendly, so to is human composting—once you're done with your body, that is. This method is an alternative to traditional burials and cremation where your body would decompose naturally and be turned into soil.
The process is called ‘natural organic reduction’ and was greenlit by legislators in Washington, the first state set to have a human decomposition site in one of its major cities (Seattle). The law, however, will not go into effect until May 2020.
Recompose—the company behind the natural organic reduction—was created of Katrina Spade who has been working in conjunction with the forensic anthropology department at Western Carolina University to make their "deathcare" option available to the public.
In a TEDx Talk, Spade shares that six donor bodies were part of the pilot program at Western Carolina where they were covered in wood chips and naturally decomposed with the help of oxygen and microbes.
“It’s possible to harness the incredible power of natural decomposition to turn human bodies into soil,” Spade said.
This is also a viable option for those concerned with reducing their carbon footprint. Recompose says it will be able to turn the deceased into a cubic yard of soil while using a mere eighth of the energy needed to cremate a body and could save up to a metric ton of CO2 per body compared to traditional burial practices.
You might be wondering how this is different from green burial, in which a body is buried without any of the chemicals traditionally usually used by morticians, and then left to decompose naturally. In short: Recompose is green burial, but with one key difference.
“Our patent-pending process is modeled on green burial, but designed for our cities where land is scarce. Organic reduction happens inside of a vessel, which is modular and reusable. Bodies are covered with wood chips and aerated, providing the perfect environment for naturally occurring microbes and beneficial bacteria. Over the span of about 30 days, the body is fully transformed, creating soil which can then be used to grow new life,” reads a statement on the company’s FAQ page.
Recompose hopes to open their Seattle location, which will be able to hold 75 bodies at a time, in December 2020.
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