Going beyond a green burial
The funeral discussion with an elderly parent is a tough one. When my dad died, my mother was still alive, so she made the decisions regarding his burial. Seven years later, my mother was also cremated, so that their ashes could be buried together. She had picked the plot they now share in the cemetery under the shade of an old oak tree.
But I well remember the times I’d tried to bring the topic up with both of them. “Well, that’s morbid and I don’t want to think about it,” my mother would say. And that would be the end of it. Having learned that lesson, I’ve let my kids know my final wishes.
Except that now I think they are changing. I thought I wanted to be cremated, mainly to spare the expense of the fancy casket that funeral home workers sometimes guilt-trip survivors into purchasing as a sign of love and respect for the departed. I mean, it’s all just going to be buried.
And as a Catholic, I knew that my remains, be they ashes or a preserved body in a coffin, must be buried. I don’t have a preference as to the location of the cemetery: I guess it should be wherever any of my kids might want to visit. They know I want a funeral Mass. They know the priest I’d like to say the Mass, assuming he outlives me. It all seemed like a done deal.
Until I learned about green burials. Specifically, reading about a company in Seattle has changed my mind. The company, called Recompose, is a licensed green funeral home in Washington state. While a green burial simply means that the unembalmed body is placed directly into the earth to decompose, Recompose goes beyond this practice. Their process, called natural organic reduction (NOR), or human composting, only became legal in Washington in 2019. It is now permissible in Oregon, Colorado, Vermont and California, with legislation pending in several other states.
I know: Human composting sounds horrifying, like something Charlton Heston discovered in “Soylent Green,” a 1973 movie that is coincidentally set in the dystopian future year 2022. But the company’s description of this new development in the treatment of earthly remains is reassuring, at least to me.
To quote from Recompose’s website: “Your loved one’s body will be surrounded by wood chips, alfalfa, and straw in a vessel where microbes will naturally break the body down. The entire process, from placing your person
into the vessel to finished soil, takes between six to eight weeks.”
The resulting soil, like the ashes of a loved one after cremation, can then be claimed and similarly spread or buried. Or, the company will donate the soil to a nonprofit land trust area in Washington if the family prefers not to keep the remains. One cubic yard of soil, after all, is a lot of soil.
There are many reasons this method appeals to me, the first of which is the fact that my grandchildren deserve an inhabitable planet. Of the 3 million people who die in the United States each year, about 1.6 million people are cremated, a process that requires fossil fuels heated to high temperatures and that releases carbon dioxide and other particulates into the atmosphere.
In human composting, the carbon matter contained in each body is returned to the earth. For every person choosing human composting over cremation, one metric ton of carbon dioxide does not enter the atmosphere. I like the idea that after death, I can leave behind choices that are environmentally friendly and will reduce my carbon footprint.
As I mentioned, I previously opted for cremation because it is cheaper than a conventional burial, and I am cheap. I’m happy to note that the cost of human composting is similar to cremation. The ceremony, flowers, and newspaper obituaries are extra, but that is true of most funerals, at least the ones I’ve had a hand in planning.
My only reason not to choose this type of burial is that my Catholic religion does not yet approve of this particular technology. The Catholic Church did not permit cremation for dead bodies until 1997, and the deceased’s ashes still cannot be scattered or kept in an urn on the mantle, but I am hopeful that, given the demonstrable good that human composting does for the earth and for the living, it will be deemed allowable by the time I go.
Now I just have to decide if I should “precompose” and lock in today’s rate. Like I told you: It’s a tough conversation. But one well worth having before you go.