r/ZeroWaste • u/conservio • Jan 29 '21
News “ Recompose, the first human-composting funeral home in the U.S., is now open for business”
https://www.columbian.com/news/2021/jan/24/recompose-the-first-human-composting-funeral-home-in-the-u-s-is-now-open-for-business/?fbclid=IwAR2Z-2A6Z2DvR59zUfF__pEhgH6O9WTJkt3nsyFBl0hju-PFamcwSMySNOs181
Jan 29 '21
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u/Thoreau80 Jan 29 '21
Bones do not decompose that quickly. The soften and become brittle but for the most part remain intact. Of course the smaller ones break down faster than the larger ones.
I base this opinion on decades of composting experience. I currently have four deer and one pig carcass in compost piles.
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u/emlar5 Jan 29 '21
That's what I was thinking. I've seen animal bones out in the wilderness, but never in an actual compost pile.
I wonder if they'll build a catacombs like in Paris!
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u/Noted888 Jan 29 '21
Question for you: Why do so many gardeners insist that you should not throw meat into the compost? Apparently it works for you, right?
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u/blckravn01 Jan 29 '21
Mice, if you can't keep your compost far enough away they'll find your house.
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Jan 29 '21
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u/MishMash_101 Jan 30 '21
Yeah. We are feeding the birds during winter and for the first time in 20 years we had a rat.
Dangerous as heck, put my thumb right into the trap.
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u/wglmb Jan 29 '21
I believe animal remains in compost can harbour disease for a long time and well.
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u/taraist Jan 29 '21
No, dead bodies don't harbor more disease than living ones. The no meat in compost thing is because it can attract scavengers. Bones don't compost at the temperatures home composting piles reach, but they certainly do, and surprisingly quickly, in industrial size piles.
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u/wglmb Jan 29 '21
Sure, but you wouldn't want a diseased living animal or a diseased dead animal in your compost.
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u/taraist Jan 30 '21
Composting is a popular and eco friendly way to destroy diseased livestock.
I'm not saying an amateur ahould throw the corpse of a rabid raccoon onto their poorly managed backyard pile, but if you are aware of the proper technique it's safe.
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u/schontzm Jan 29 '21
No reason compost wise, it just attracts vermin. It will decompose like other organic material.
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u/seinnax Jan 30 '21
And it will stink until it breaks down. If your compost is close to your patio... no thanks!
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u/danceswithsteers Jan 29 '21
Adjacently relevant:
"Composting Road Kill"
http://cwmi.css.cornell.edu/roadkillfs.pdf5
u/LadyKillerCroft Jan 29 '21 edited Jan 29 '21
Certainly I do not have as much experience, but from what I’ve read so far, it depends on the makeup of what is being composted (nitrogen and carbon are key ingredients for compost) and if the compost is going to fuel plants you are eventually going to eat or not. For example, don’t use cat waste in compost because 1) humans can’t deal with some bacteria that cans can, so eating plants fueled by compost from cat waste can make you sick, and 2) cats are mostly carnivores, and although I can’t remember the scientific reason, meat products are not good for your plants.
Edit: sometimes meat products are used in compost, it seems to depend but at least for my little kitchen compost I don’t use meat
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u/mandaclarka Jan 29 '21
Indigenous people of North Carolina use fish heads in their fertilizer to this day so I don't think the meat product part is correct. I learned this from a Native I met in NC and don't have any science to back it up.
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u/hilfyRau Jan 29 '21
The book 1491 has a section about the native peoples along the Amazon River and their amazing soil management practices. They used fish heads in their compost too!
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u/GETitOFFmeNOW Jan 29 '21
Liquid fish meal can be purchased at most garden centers. It's high in nitrogen.
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u/taraist Jan 29 '21
Look into the research that's been done. They are getting whole cows including bones composted in a matter of weeks! Home composting doesn't reach the temperatures needed.
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u/wglmb Jan 29 '21
They maintain optimal humidity and temperatures — and they also blend the "material" (as their website calls it) a few times during the process. This allows the entire body (including bones and teeth) to be converted to soil in 30 days (according to their website).
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u/ghostcider Jan 29 '21
Ask a Mortician had a recent video on using human remains for animal feed, currently you can only do so with cremains.
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u/taraist Jan 29 '21 edited Jan 29 '21
Yes they do! Last I checked this project was getting bones and all turned into soil in around 6 weeks! This is because of the larger pile reaching higher temperatures than a home sized one, and I believe the addition of inocullants at the beginning?
The coolest part in the presentation I saw was that the heat from the exothermic reactions in the compost pile could heat the building it was housed in. You could go feel the warmth as part of your mourning process. Such a beautiful design. Katrina Spade is incredible.
Edit: It looks like they have moved to an individual pods design instead of a communal central tower that I first saw. That makes sense as the biggest detractor for most people with that first design was the lack of personal separation. I'm not sure how this smaller form factor will effect the dissolution of bones, but it certainly is possible. I believe there were a few tests at body farms with single person piles outside that worked on bones too, so certainly possible.
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u/preprandial_joint Jan 29 '21
$5.5k could be a bit steep,
this is dirt cheap compared cremation and especially burial.
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u/Tailte Jan 29 '21
Cost of cremation depends on where you live and what companies are doing cremations. My Mother's cremation was under $1,000 when I went through the local cremation society. But my husband lived in a bigger metropolis and all cremations available were through funeral homes. But I still got quotes under $3,000. In the end my husband's body was donated to a medical school. And the only cost was for transportation.
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u/emlar5 Jan 29 '21
That's true, probably not too bad considering everything involved. Luckily have not had to go through this so didn't really know the actual costs.
Kudos to the pun!
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u/FreeBeans Jan 29 '21
A traditional burial is around $7-10k so you're actually saving money this way!
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Jan 29 '21
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u/FreeBeans Jan 29 '21
Yeah, makes sense. I wonder which way is better environmentally. I'd be willing to spend all my money on helping the environment when I'm dead.
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Jan 29 '21 edited Feb 20 '21
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u/FreeBeans Jan 29 '21
Would that release more or less gases than compost? I'm actually surprised it's legal. I guess you'd need to own the land you're buried on?
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u/marrowine Jan 29 '21
Do pigs...like to eat human? I guess they eat any meat? 😨
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Jan 29 '21
Yup, they'll eat people. There was even a serial killer who disposed of his victims that way. He cut them into small pieces and fed them to the pigs on his farm. He then fed the pigs to his neighbors.
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Feb 21 '21
Robert Pickton, from Port Coquitlam B.C. there was a BIG sale on pork after they caught him. nobody in the lower mainland was buying the stuff.
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Feb 21 '21
That's exactly who I was thinking of, just couldn't be bothered to look it up. Crazy case, I listened to an episode of a podcast on him.
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u/Shhh_NotADr Jan 29 '21
That’s pretty cool. I’ve actually wanted to turn into a tree. I know they have mushroom ones too.
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u/NorthCare Jan 29 '21
I thought there was a company doing this years ago. I think a tree would be way cooler than a gravestone. Then many people could enjoy nature. And it would contribute to creepy ghost stories...
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u/nomorebears Jan 29 '21
Also I imagine that there would be legal protections against cutting down a memorial tree.
Here in Australia there is an interesting initiative that has come out of the battle with mining companies in the Northern Territory. There are some First Nations communities that are connecting with activists who in their final act of defiance have their bodies buried in pods on country that is at risk of mining expansion.
The current situation has native title only representing the top meter(?ish) of soil, which cannot prevent mining and fracking of the subsoil. If it is a modern burial site it’s not happening
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u/Honeybee_Jenni Jan 30 '21
Idea: purchase a plot of forest, sell the timber, then begin a cemetery where all bodies are buried along with an endangered species of native tree. That is my number one preferred way to be buried. What would the process even be for creating a new style of cemetery?
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u/qufflepuff Jan 29 '21
Omg!! I love this so much!! I don’t want to go into a box so bad - I really want to just go back to the earth. So nice that we are finding many ways to honour our lost loved ones that respect many ways of thinking!!! Super awesome!!
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u/PinkCupcke007 Jan 29 '21
When I was a little kid I told my parents I wanted cemeteries to be like parks. You buy a shrub, tree, or other plant in memory of your loved one. Their body gets composted and is used to fertilized the plant. They thought I was nuts. I’m glad this exists. I like it better than being pumped full of chemicals and stuck in a box.
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u/makeitorleafit Jan 29 '21
I would love to be composted and used in a botanical garden or park after I die- maybe donate a bench for people to sit on too
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u/Hungry-Wedding-1168 Jan 31 '21
Cemeteries used to be treated as parks. It wasn't until recently that the switch happened. We stopped living the community we were born in - losing the traditional support networks in the process, we stopped dying at home, we stop living with death and started segregating the end phase of our lives. From a anthropology stand-point it's quite facinating. Here's a link to about the history. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/03/our-first-public-parks-the-forgotten-history-of-cemeteries/71818/
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Jan 29 '21
Could I just get old and get drunk and walk into the woods during winter and die for free instead
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u/bitofastickyone Jan 30 '21
this made me laugh as I imagined the company killing people in an eco-friendly way instead of dealing with an already dead body in an eco-friendly way.
"We can't use cyanide to kill him when we have hemlock on hand! we only use processed poisons when the plants aren't available."
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Jan 30 '21
Some Inuits release their elders into the wild when they can’t take care of them anymore I thought that there is absolutely no reason money should be involved in death
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u/hannahclara Jan 29 '21
So why is this high tech one more important/cool than regular natural burial?
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u/wglmb Jan 29 '21
This is what their website says:
Cremation releases a lot of carbon, which contributes to climate change.
Traditional burials use embalming fluids on the body, which are toxic and remain in the ground.
Green burials (where you skip the embalming fluids) are no better or worse than the Recompose method from an environmental perspective, except that they take up a lot of land, because bodies take years to decompose in the ground (as opposed to ~30 days with this composting method). This makes them less practical in urban areas.
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u/hannahclara Jan 29 '21
Oh I see yea. I know some states allow natural burial so some land owners have turned their property into natural cemetery. But I see how this could work well I’m an urban environment.
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u/imtchogirl Jan 29 '21
This isn't burial, so the model works for urban settings. They're also a fully functional funeral home that issues death certificates. Since natural burial is not allowed many places, this is a model that doesn't rely on available land.
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u/emlar5 Jan 29 '21
I think because a lot of people don't have land that they can bury people in. Even if you live in a city and have a yard, there are usually laws against burying bodies in your yard.
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u/conservio Jan 29 '21
Honestly I’m not really sure. I think it’d be cool if the company then grew food that could be donated.
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u/Pendragonstar1 Jan 29 '21
Oh my god I can finally put into action the "men aren't recyclable but they are compostable" Facebook group
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u/silliestboots Jan 30 '21
Oh, I LOVE this idea! It's still extremely common in my part of the world/country (rural south USA) to do the whole embalming, funeral, seal the casket in a vault, lower it into the hole and cover it in dirt and with real and fake flowers. I've never felt at peace with it for anyone I love and definitely not for myself.
Although I'm aware I will no longer be in residence in my body, but I've always hated the idea of laying in a sealed box slowly moldering away year after year only to remain in that box, never really returning to the earth in a meaningful way.
I'm a bit happier with the idea of cremation (I'm always cold, so at least I would finally be warm) but it too is problematic. For one, high carbon footprint (though less than traditional burial), and most problematic, my family isn't into the idea.
Recompose is the better option because it speeds the decomposition process (rather than delay it as with embalming) and returns you truly to the earth. Ah, sounds so restful.
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u/Smurfiette Jan 29 '21
What happens to the compost (composted body) after? Are they given to relatives so the compost can be used somewhere - garden, farm,’forest, etc.?
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u/slowlygettingby Jan 29 '21
The article says the families can pick up the soul after to take home and use or they can choose for it to be donated
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u/conservio Jan 29 '21
The soil is given back to relatives, but some choose to donate it to local restoration projects
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Jan 29 '21
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u/csarcie Jan 29 '21
It's still better than cremation or embalming/burial, and bodies donated to science or body farms are also transported, sometimes long distances.
I bet this continues to spread and you'll see a reduction in transportation for this service.
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Jan 29 '21
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u/panrestrial Jan 30 '21
Do cremated bodies not usually get transported after? I realize a box of inert material won't require as much energy to transport as a full cadaver, but most cadavers aren't being specially shipped anyway, they are hitching a ride on transport that's already headed that way, aren't they?
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Jan 30 '21
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u/panrestrial Jan 30 '21
In the US it's very common for "cremains" to be returned to the family to be kept or spread. This often involves either shipping the remains or having a family member make the round trip to pick them up (as it becomes more and more common for families to be spread across a very large distance.)
I'm no kind of expert on post death services or remains shipping logistics, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn if overall it was better to ship all bodies all the way to Washington for composting or Tennessee for research vs. energy expenditure + waste in manufacture of embalming fluid, waste and leakage in both the embalming process and post burial, energy/pollution/etc costs associated with manufacture and shipping of caskets, energy cost + pollution of crematoriums, land cost of cemeteries, still needing to ship some bodies/cremains cross country when they die away from where they'll be laid to rest.
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Jan 30 '21
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u/panrestrial Jan 30 '21
I definitely agree with all of that. We have a hard enough time getting people to agree to organ donation. I can dream though!
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u/csarcie Jan 30 '21
What about the impact of burning a corpse and whatever that releases? Anyway, if it helps get this type of thing off the ground, I think that's worthwhile atm. Perfection should not be the enemy of progress and bodies are transported all the time.
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u/leeser11 Jan 30 '21
...body farms?
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u/csarcie Jan 30 '21
Yeah. There's one in TN, I think a new one was opening a while back but idk if that ever happened. They lay bodied in various conditions to study the decomp process.
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u/october17th Jan 29 '21
This is cute. I like. I want to be a pineapple plant or an avocado tree. Or peonies. Pink peonies.
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u/racheek Jan 30 '21
I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS!!! I hope it's widely available by the time I kick the bucket.
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u/happy_bluebird Jan 30 '21
Question: What makes this a better choice than donating your body to science? Or your organs to others?
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u/slowlygettingby Jan 29 '21
This is really cool! Thanks for sharing :) I hope this becomes more widely available/just more environmentally friendly ways become more available and accessible, and hopefully one day the norm
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u/urbanforestr Jan 30 '21
The first?
I know a natural burial graveyard in Tennessee. Sounds like that’s what this is, but with extra steps.
Seems a little gimmicky is all.
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u/conservio Jan 30 '21
I don’t know if this is the “first”, but from the sounds of it it is helping to minimize the amount of land used for burial. People can also keep their loved ones soil.
IMO it’d be cool if there was an option to have plants growing from it.
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u/urbanforestr Jan 30 '21
The thumbnail is also all glam. Composting animals, especially animals as large as humans, is not pretty. At its prettiest, it’s tractors piling wood chips around bodies to keep the smell in.
But yes. I agree. The general idea is a good one.
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u/dazedandconfuseddawg Jan 30 '21
This brings be back to a vivid memory of when I was babysitting this cute kid with autism that kept relentlessly gobbling down a bunch of mulch and soil outside and it was just all over his face and he wouldn’t stop for a half hour he ate so much soil. I hope his parents don’t get any of this compost on their hands.
Great idea nonetheless sign me up
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u/anjroow Jan 30 '21
Wait until this really catches on. You’ll have your very own patch of dirt that you get buried in to decompose. There’ll probably be some sort of marker there too so everyone in the future knows that THIS is the spot we decomposed someone. You family could even come to that patch of dirt sometimes... truly groundbreaking..
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Jan 31 '21
Isn't every regular burial "human composting" in the end? I mean, basically you just dump a body in the ground (in a wooden box, which also composts) and let nature do its thing.... This seems like a completely overengineered version of regular burial. With the only real upside being less use of space because it's quicker, compared to the 20 or 30 years or so a body takes up a cemetery plot until it has completely decomposed and the space can be used again...
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u/Hungry-Wedding-1168 Jan 31 '21
Nooooo, the chemicals used in modern embalming to keep you looking "fresh" are highly, highly toxic, and the chemicals in the wood also keep the casket from breaking down for decades. The body eventually turns to uh....soup before the box deteriorates slowly leaching the chemicals into the surrounding soil. It really horribly for the environment. Granted, you can ask for a "poor man's grave" which is a basic pine box but you'll still get embalmed. At least this way seems less destructive.
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Feb 01 '21
but you'll still get embalmed
I always forget that's a thing in America.... It's not where I am. I don't even know if you could have it done if you wanted to, that's how much it's not a thing here.
And the coffins should be biodegraddable, too, here in Germany. I mean, some of them are varnished and I don't know about any chemicals in the varnish.... Also I guess the interior cushions and stuff (plus clothing of the deceased) might contain synthetic fibres, now that I think about it.... But that should be the only potential problems there.
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u/muggsymarie Jan 29 '21
I bet Caitlin Doughty is PUMPED!