(Althea Halchuck is a Board-Certified Patient Advocate (BCPA) with over 20 years of experience advocating for the vulnerable and dying. She started Ending Well! Patient Advocacy to assist those at the end of their lives, offering support – including end-of-life counseling, advance care planning, legacy creation, and doula/vigil services. Her trademark is “Death Maven.” This article, used with permission, was first published on KevinMD.)
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“Rejoin the natural cycle to know that the last gesture you’ll make will be gentle and beneficial – just feels like the right thing to do.” – Recompose founder Katrina Spade
I love gardening and watching things grow, so I found the idea of human composting an intriguing concept. For those who find cremation unconventional or even unsettling, the process of disposing of the remains of a deceased loved one has taken a new and fascinating turn.
Now, there is a green alternative to traditional burial or cremation. Whether you call it human composting, terramation, soil transformation, or natural organic reduction, the essence remains the same: It’s about allowing your loved one to return to the earth gently and beneficially, transforming into nutrient-rich soil, i.e., compost suitable for fertilization.
Going green has reached a “final” frontier, and the process is fast becoming the latest natural method in the end-of-life planning and burial world. Here’s a description from Earth Funeral, one of the companies that specialize in this method:
Soil transformation is a natural, environmentally friendly alternative to burial and cremation, sometimes referred to as human composting. Over a 45-day process, a body is gently transformed into a cubic yard of nutrient-rich soil. Families choose how much soil they’d like returned – to scatter or plant – and the remainder is sent to our Olympic Peninsula conservation site for land restoration projects. The soil becomes a means to return nutrients from our bodies to the natural world.
Soil transformation “is a gentle, natural process. It takes place in our proprietary vessel system, which creates ideal conditions for water and naturally occurring microbes to break the body down on a molecular level. The result is nutrient-rich soil.”
Soil transformation sounds like a wonderful and gentle process, doesn’t it? Well, except for the small detail that you have to be, um, no longer with us to take advantage of this “natural, environmentally friendly alternative.” But hey, at least you’ll do your part for the environment.
Here is a nifty booklet from Earth Funeral on soil transformation that explains all the details:
Earth: An Introduction to Soil Transformation
Earth Funeral’s quote for MY future composting is $5,450, which includes the “Earth Package”:
- Care team to guide you through the process
- Collection and care from the place of passing
- Transportation to the nearest Earth facility
- Filing of all necessary paperwork & permits
- An Earth soil transformation
- The soil returned to your family
- Five Impact Trees planted by One Tree Planted
- Access to the Earth Family Portal
- Worldwide travel protection
Sarah, an Earth Funeral employee, filled in many of the blanks. Earth Funeral has only one facility, and it’s in Washington, but it covers some neighboring states. It transports the deceased to its site similarly to a body for cremation: on an airplane packed in dry ice. Earth Funeral is in the process of building a facility in Nevada and is expanding to California. It and its competitors are state-regulated and licensed as funeral homes.
Recompose “is a licensed green funeral home in Seattle supporting clients across the US. Our experienced funeral directors provide personalized support throughout the entire death care journey.” They were the first in the world to offer this alternative, and their website’s FAQs answered other burning questions:
“Bones are reduced to a fine powder by equipment after the soil is removed from the Recompose vessel. Staff also screen for non-organics, such as implants (hips and knees, I’m thinking), which are recycled whenever possible. The reduced bone is added back to the compost to help balance the compost nutrients and make minerals available to plants. Recompose follows all compost-testing regulations put forth by the Washington State Department of Licensing and the Board of Health.”
Human composting has gained significant legal recognition, with Arizona being the latest state to authorize its official use.
In April 2024, Governor Hobbs signed the “Grandpa in the Garden” bill, marking a giant leap toward human composting. This move follows the pioneering efforts of Washington State, which first recognized the process in 2019. Since then, California, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, Nevada, and New York have joined the list. Several other states are currently considering similar bills.
As you might expect, one opponent is the Catholic Church.
“The New York State Catholic Conference, a group that represents bishops in the state, has long opposed the bill, calling the burial method ‘inappropriate.’ Human bodies are not household waste, and we do not believe that the process meets the standard of reverent treatment of our earthly remains.”
They have issues with cremation, too, but according to the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA), more than half of all Americans who die this year will be cremated, and many will have Catholic funeral services. As for the bishop’s claim of irreverent treatment, terramation begins with a sacred ritual similar to those in use for more than 2,000 years.
Watch Caitlin Doughty’s YouTube video recorded at the Recompose facility to get an idea of what this process looks like: Let’s Visit the Human Composting Facility
Human composting is a little more expensive than cremation but costs much less than a burial, and I think this environmentally friendly “green” option will attract many. Having Grandpa’s composted remains under your fingernails – and really pushing up daisies – what will they think of next? Oh, but wait, Desmond Tutu chose something called water cremation, aka aquamation (and others increasingly are), but that’s a story for another day.
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Final Exit Network (FEN) is a network of dedicated professionals and caring, trained volunteers who support mentally competent adults as they navigate their end-of-life journey. Established in 2004, FEN seeks to educate qualified individuals in practical, peaceful ways to end their lives, offer a compassionate bedside presence and defend a person’s right to choose. For more information, go to www.finalexitnetwork.org.
Payments and donations are tax deductible to the full extent allowed by law. Final Exit Network is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.
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