Eco-friendly Funeral Alternative: Human Composting

An eco-friendly funeral alternative prepares to launch next year in America after a successful pilot.

Recompose, a public benefit corporation founded by Katrina Spade aims to offer funeral alternatives and burial methods. According to their website, the service they offer "gently converts human remains into the soil."

Washington State Governor Jay Inslee legalized the process known as "natural organic reduction"--- the process that converts human remains into soil. The law was signed on May 21, 2019, and will go into effect on May 1, 2020.

Recompose's "human composting service" will be the first of its kind in the world when it launches in Washington state in 2021.

This funeral alternative claims the process minimizes waste and pollution that normal processes emit. It also claims to emit lesser carbon footprints.

The pilot study saw six dead bodies fully decomposed within 30 days. The process involves placing the body of the deceased in a reusable hexagonal steel container along with wood chips, alfalfa, and straw. The body is slowly rotated and goes through carefully controlled conditions until it fully breaks down into soil.

Natural Organic Reduction turns out two cubic yards of soil within 30 days.

The process was also found to have destroyed many varieties of disease-causing organisms. Pharmaceuticals and other drugs were also reduced by the process.

At the end of the process, the containers are screened for non-organic materials to ensure all that remains is soil.

Families are able to take home some of the soil created after the process is finished.

Katrina Spade, Recompose's founder, credited climate change as a big factor why people are now interested in the funeral alternative. "The project has moved forward so quickly because of the urgency of climate change and the awareness we have to put it right," she told BBC.

The process has taken Professor Lynne Carpenter Boggs, a soil scientist, four years to perfect. The results of their study in 2018 deemed the process safe and effective.

All six subjects in the trial were volunteers who had given their consent before their deaths.

How much will the service cost?

According to their website, the pricing for their funeral alternative service is still in the works. They did, however, state they are aiming to make the service available at a price of $5,500.

Their services will include transportation of the body of the deceased, a death certificate, and the process itself.

Recompose states they hope to make their services affordable and a permanent death care option.

Who can avail of the service?

The service is open to everyone except those who have died of prion disease or a highly contagious disease.

Recompose is currently only offering the funeral alternative service to humans.

How did Recompose start?

Recompose started when Katrina, the founder, was attracted natural burials and the idea of it.

In 2014, she received funding from Echoing Green Climate Fellowship. She began collaborating with researchers after she founded her non-profit Urban Death Project.

From 2014 to 2016, Spade and her team raised awareness of the problem of a toxic industry and researched laws and legalities surrounding death care. They worked with Western Carolina University in performing several model human decomposition studies.

Spade closed Urban Death Project and founded Recompose in 2017 in hopes of piloting the eco-friendly recomposition system.

Recompose|SEATTLE aims to open by early 2021.