Human composting: The rising interest in natural burial

In the garden of her home in Bellingham, Washington, Marie Eaton is always able to find something she lost. “When I come out to garden, he’s there,” she said. “And every time I’m under one of the maples, I think, ‘Oh yeah, Wayne, you’re here.'”

Her brother, Wayne Dodge, was also an avid gardener with a fondness for Japanese maple trees. But in 2021 he fell down the stairs and became a quadriplegic. A few months later, the 71-year-old doctor got pneumonia.

Eaton said, “As a physician, he knew what that meant; they call pneumonia the old man’s friend. And he chose that way to leave. We were devastated to lose him, but understood that choice.”

Instead of being buried or cremated, Wayne had chosen a relatively new alternative: natural organic reduction, more simply known as human composting. It’s a natural process that transforms the body into soil.

Some of it is spread under the Japanese maples in Marie Eaton’s yard. “It’s beautiful, like beautiful, beautiful mulch,” she said.

Tracy asked, “What do you say to people who will hear this and say, ‘That just sounds a little creepy or a little strange’?”

Eaton replied, “I might invite them to think a little bit about what traditional burial involves, which is embalming a body, putting it inside a lead-lined coffin, and putting it into a concrete vault in the ground, as though we were pretending the person’s not dead. That, to me, is much more creepy than this process of naturally becoming part of the soil again.”

For Eaton’s brother, that process happened at Recompose in Seattle, the first human composting facility in the country.

Katrina Spade, the founder and CEO, showed Tracy the space where families can hold a memorial service, as their loved one is covered with organic plant material, such as straw and woodchips. “We typically have the person’s body laid here, and at the end of the ceremony we pass the person’s body though the threshold vessel.”

On the other side is an array of 8-foot-long stainless steel containers, in which more natural material is added to aid in decomposition.

The process typically takes 30 to 40 days.

Spade said, “We’re creating this perfect environment to facilitate that transformation into soil. Bone at that point is reduced mechanically to sort of like a sand-like substance.”

Spade is a former architecture student who was instrumental in Washington State becoming the first in the nation to legalize human composting in 2019. Five other states (Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, New York and California) have followed, and there are now a handful of companies offering this service.

Human composting is considered an environmentally-friendly choice, a way to minimize death’s carbon footprint. Today, according to the National Funeral Directors Association, most Americans choose to be cremated (59%) or buried (36%), which involves burning fossil fuels and toxic chemicals.

Tracy asked, “Do you find that the environmental footprint of this is part of what’s driving some folks’ decisions?”

“Yes,” Spade replied. “If you’ve lived your whole life thinking about that and trying to make a difference environmentally, it makes sense, too, to think about your environmental impact after you die.”

But the New York State Catholic Conference opposes the practice, saying it is “more appropriate for vegetable trimmings and eggshells than for human bodies.”

Spade said, “I know that this is an incredibly respectful process, and for so many people it’s more than that. It’s deeply meaningful.”

“It is like giving your body back to nature?” said Tracy.

“We truly get to be nature eventually,” she replied.

Simple natural burials were standard until the Civil War, when soldiers were embalmed so that their bodies could be returned to their families. Abraham Lincoln’s funeral made the process popular, and luxurious caskets became the new standard. 

Human composting is one of the few innovations in death care in more than a century. So far, about 300 people have used Recompose’s services, which cost about $7,000. The soil created, which fills the bed of a pickup truck, can be taken by the family, or donated to forest conservation efforts.

Marie Eaton’s brother’s soil was given to family and friends to sustain the trees he so loved. “Wayne is all over Seattle, planted under many, many Japanese maple trees,” Eaton said.

She finds comfort in knowing that his death continues to create new life.  “Every time I come outside here and see the maples, I’m reminded of this wonderful, wonderful man.”

       
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Story produced by John Goodwin. Editor: Ben McCormick.