Human composting
Human composting is a process for the final disposition of human remains in which microbes and organic material convert a deceased body into compost. Developed in the early 21st century as an environmentally sustainable alternative to burial and cremation, human composting is legally sanctioned in several U.S states and Sweden. Human composting has prompted much debate around environmental impacts, legalization, and religious considerations.
Development and implementation
Impetus and development
In the 21st century, several factors led to development of human composting as one of several proposals for alternative deathcare.As described in the 1963 exposé The American Way of Death, the for-profit death care industry in the United States evolved after the Civil War to promote ostentatious and resource-intense funerary customs mainly for burial, including embalming with chemicals, expensive coffins, and highly decorated gravesites. In the decades following the exposé, cremation grew in popularity as a simpler alternative, outnumbering burials nationwide by 2015.
However, cremation itself has a number of environmental impacts, including the use of fossil fuels in retorts and the emissions released by combustion.
Seeking ways to curtail the impact of deathcare, Katrina Spade is credited with pursuing research on ways to accelerate decomposition using methods previously used with livestock. The process was the subject of scientific study at Washington State University in 2020.
Terminology
There are various terms for specific methods of composting human remains. These include:- Natural organic reduction or simply organic reduction, is the term adopted by the State of Washington after it became the first jurisdiction to legalize and regulate a form of human composting. Natural organic reduction is legally defined as "the contained, accelerated conversion of human remains to soil". This term and definition was subsequently adopted by other states in their own codes and regulations.
- Recomposition is the term of art used in the U.S. patent application by Katrina Spade and Recompose, PBC.
- Soil transformation is a trademark registered by the Earth Funeral Group, Inc.
- Terramation is a trademark registered by Return Home Inc.
Methods
As described in their patent application and news reports, Recompose's method entails placement of human corpses in a container along with a composting feedstock of plant material. In reports, this is described as a mixture of woodchips, straw and alfalfa. Recompose estimates they use of plant material. The mixture is aerated to encourage the temperature of the mixture to rise until thermophile microbes decompose the body and the feedstock. In addition to developing the composting process itself, Spade worked with engineer Oren Bernstein to design containers and frames to compost several bodies within a single complex.
Other companies use similar processes, with some differing details. In a Popular Science article, Return Home describes custom-built machinery to turn the container and continue decomposition. The company Earth Funeral uses a feedstock that includes mulch and wildflowers. Herland Forest utilizes composting vessels in an outdoor setting rather than in a climate-controlled indoor environment.
In this manner, the reduction of remains to soil may take place in as little as 1–2 months. Recompose estimates that per person, their process yields soil in the amount of by volume and by weight.
Based on a customer's preferences, a portion of compost from natural organic reduction can be returned to loved ones in containers and scattered, similar to cremated ash. Recompose and Return Home each donate soil to conservation forests.
Precautions and contraindications
Disposition of human bodies through composting has a number of health, safety and legal requirements and restrictions.Pathogen control
The United States Environmental Protection Agency standardized "Processes to Further Reduce Pathogens" under. This requires within-vessel composting to achieve a temperature of sustained for over 3 days. This temperature is also required to reduce the presence of pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, and chemotherapy drugs.Persons with certain diseases are ineligible for human composting due to pathogens that may survive the temperatures of the composting process.
Remains requiring special handling
Although bones decay, they do so more slowly than soft tissue. In human composting, bones are removed in the middle of the process to be pulverized using mechanical equipment and integrated back into the soil. This equipment is also used by crematories so funerary ashes can integrate bone.Implants with batteries or radioactive materials present risks that require removal before a body is composted. Metals must also be removed from composted remains.
Restrictions on placement
In Washington, regulations require the testing of composted remains for levels of toxins including arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury, and selenium. Remains exceeding limits may not be released into the environment.States that legalized the process of natural organic reduction simultaneously restricted the handling and disposition of organically reduced human remains. The state of Colorado prohibits growing food with soil from human remains. The state of California allows state or local agencies to prohibit scattering in specific areas.
Activism for legalization
Proponents say human composting is more economical, environmentally friendly, and respectful of the body and the earth than the methods of disposal that are typically practiced in technologically advanced societies. Cremation uses fossil fuels or large amounts of wood for funeral pyres, and conventional burial is land-intensive, has a high carbon footprint, and frequently involves disposing of bodily fluids and liquified organs in the sewer and injecting the body with toxic embalming chemicals. By contrast, human composting, like natural burial, is a natural process and contributes ecological value by preserving the body's nutrient material. While energy is still required for human composting facility operations, it only uses an eighth of energy than that required for cremation.Human compositing tends to be less expensive compared to cremation and traditional burials, typically costing between $3,000 and $7,000 compared to $7,000-$12,000 and $4,000-$7,000.
Author and YouTuber Caitlin Doughty, writing in favor of legalization in New York state, argues that the process "fulfills many people's desire to nurture the earth after dying." An editorial in Undark Magazine argues that "natural organic reduction respects the human body and spirit, supports rather than sullies the earth, and works with nature rather than against it".
Religious views
As human composting is contemplated and legalized in more jurisdictions, its compatibility with religious beliefs has been debated.Christian
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church in the United States has lobbied legislators against the legalization of human composting.The Catholic Church interprets the Nicene Creed to uphold a universal resurrection of earthly remains. The Church began sanctioning cremation in 1963, but the 1983 Code of Canon Law forbids church funerals to cremations held "for anti-christian motives" that deny the resurrection. The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith elaborates that respect for remains, whether buried or cremated, requires their placement intact to "cemeteries or other sacred places", and says that scattering of remains gives "appearance of pantheism, naturalism or nihilism".
The National Catholic Register published a dissenting opinion from Saint Louis University professor in bioethics Jason T. Eberl that human composting is compatible with Catholic teaching. Specifically, he argued it should be in line with the Pope Francis on environmentalism in Laudato si' and on preferential option for the poor in Evangelii gaudium. Eberl concludes that "a body that has been naturally organically reduced could also be interred in the same fashion or utilized as soil in a designated, blessed area to foster new life that will be memorialized by future generations, fulfilling in a more direct way the Biblical declaration that we are dust and to dust we shall return."
In 2024, following the legalization of human composting in several states, the Catholic Cemetery Conference advised its members that "with agreement of its Bishop Catholic cemetery may allow for inscribing the name of the deceased loved one on a family memorial, preceded by 'In Loving Memory of' or as explicitly allowed by the cemetery rules and regulations." The Conference also reiterated that "the Catholic church does not promote or endorse the use of Human Composting."
Protestant
In 2023, the Church of England stated that it is considering the theological, practical and pastoral issues of the practice.The Episcopal News Service profiled human composting as part of a review of American Episcopalians' growing interest in novel funerary practices.
Judaism
interpretations of Halakha religious law require burial of the dead and have opposed cremation. As the state of New York contemplated legalization, The Forward sought rabbinical opinions about the status of human composting.- Speaking for Agudath Israel of America, Rabbi Avi Shafran voiced opposition to "'utilizing' a body as a growth medium."
- Rabbi Joseph Potasnik of the interdenominational New York Board of Rabbis argued that it lacks appropriate reverence for the dead.
- Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky of the Conservative movement synagogue Ansche Chesed expressed that the use of soil from organically reduced human remains constitutes a forbidden profiting from a body.
- Reconstructionist Rabbi Seth Goldstein says human composting "seems more in line with Jewish practice than cremation in terms of the practices and values that surround it" and believed in its environmental benefits gave merit.
- When asked for an opinion the Union for Reform Judaism gave no comment.