There are many ways to dispose of dead bodies. The most popular are burials and cremation. A new method, called “aquamation”, is being usedYou can now choose to make compost with the new “recomposition” option.
Recompose, the first funeral house that turns dead bodies into compost, was launched just outside Seattle. It began turning its customers into soil. reported EcoWatch.
Recompose founder Katrina Spade spent many years trying to find a way to dispose of dead bodies that was different from traditional methods. Since 2011, Spade has refined her own solution to the matter, “natural organic reduction”.
“After you die, your body will be laid into the vessel onto a bed of wood chips, alfalfa, and straw. Everything inside the vessel will begin to decompose within 30 days. The soil is then removed and placed in a curing container, where it is kept for several weeks. Then, it can be donated for conservation efforts or given back to the person of your choosing,” Recompose’s website reads.
The dead body, along with wood chips, straw, straw, and alfalfa (a perennial flowering plant of the legume family Fabaceae), are placed in a container. This provides the best heat, water and carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen for the process of decomposition. The body will be broken down by naturally occurring microbes over the next 30 day. The resulting soil (about 1 cubic yard worth) dries for two weeks to a month before it’s distributed to families or donated to an ecological restoration project.
Recompose’s outreach manager, Anna Swenson told Colorado Newsline that the $5,500 price includes “the transformation into soil, the opportunity to keep or donate the soil, a virtual ceremony facilitated by our staff, the death certificate, and everything that you would expect from a funeral home at the end of life.”
Recompose’s environmental appeal is important for the planet. According to Recompose each body that is composted saves 1 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions when it is buried in a conventional manner or cremated.
The company currently houses 10 bodies, but plans to increase that number to 40 by year’s end.
We have moved from burying and burning the dead to turning them into water and soil. The next step in how we deal dead bodies seems to involve sending them to outer space.