“Human compost”, an ecological technique for burying the dead. This is the principle of a movement to better understand the afterlife, in a world that is more respectful of the environment. A new life as close as possible to the very essence of nature: the earth.
A woodpecker perches on a branch as Cindy Armstrong gazes at a patch of land that was once her son. She smiled as she remembered that the young man, struck down by cancer, wanted his remains to be composted to allow a new life to flourish. This desire is part of a movement that campaigns for more environmentally friendly funerals in the United States.
A return of the body to the earth
Cindy Armstrong remembers the moment when her son announced to her that she wanted a “humusation” (neologism taken from the word “humus”, the upper layer of the soil, editor’s note) after Washington, in the west of the United States, became in 2019 the first US state to legalize this alternative to cremation. “I was mortified,” she recalls. “But now that I have gone through the process, I am completely in favor of it. I will be transformed into humus.”
Her son’s composted remains have joined others being used to restore a hillside in the town of Kent, near Seattle. A former haunt of drug addicts, the slope was once dotted with gutted cars, sometimes riddled with bullets. “He wanted a return to nature,” Ms Armstrong said of her son Andrew, who died aged 36. The land is owned by start-up Return Home, which has completed 40 humusations since launching in nearby Auburn 7 months ago.
“Better to Die”
“It’s as if these people were teaching us how to die better,” said Return Home founding boss Micah Truman, during a tour of a large room filled with rows of large metal containers, called “receptacles”. The room is well lit and lively music is playing. Loved ones, who visit during the 60-day decomposition process, can choose songs celebrating the existence of those they have lost. The bodies are not embalmed in order to avoid the use of chemicals. Families are invited to place flowers or biodegradable materials on the straw and other natural ingredients.
The amount of organic matter added is almost three times greater than the weight of the human body, which makes it possible to produce hundreds of kilos of compost. Sensors monitoring humidity, temperature and airflow are synchronized to a computer to optimize the decomposition process. Halfway through, the bones are removed and ground into fine particles before being placed back into the receptacle to also be turned into compost.
The end product has the appearance and consistency of regular compost. Families can keep as much as they want, with the rest used to restore the hillside. Local urban plans prohibit any construction on the land.
Green and environmentally friendly funerals
For Edward Bixby, president of the Green Burial Council, this process “is about returning to the land as we came”. “We were dust, we return to dust”, describes Mr. Bixby, who opened the first cemetery for natural burials in New Jersey 5 years ago and has since established itself in ten American states.
The Green Burial Council, which he chairs, brings together more than 400 companies dedicated to these green funerals, including some outside the United States. According to this organization, a single cremation requires as much fuel as the tank of an SUV and the bodies reduced to ashes produce greenhouse gases. Return Home’s services are charged at $5,000, about the same price as a cremation. It is necessary to count the double or the triple for traditional funerals.
Several possibilities
It is possible to have the body wrapped in a biodegradable shroud or placed in a wooden box and then buried. The Californian start-up Coeio sells a funeral garment containing mycelium, supposed to “neutralize toxins in the human body and transfer nutrients to the flora”.
Green burials are part of a natural approach to death, advocates say. “People started to fear death and dying because of horror movies and things like that,” says Mr Bixby. “We always had the possibility to take care of our loved ones after their death, we just forgot about it.”
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