Recompose's Human Composting is a Respectful, Newly Legal Death Care Option
upstart writes:
Traditional burials and cremation aren't great for the environment:
[...] Recompose began as a graduate school thesis from founder Katrina Spade and turned into a full-scale funeral home that transforms human bodies into compost, allowing loved ones' remains to be used in gardens, forests, or other green spaces. From the seed of an idea, the company has designed an effective and respectful way to compost bodies, as well as helped to make the technique legal in several states.
[...] Traditional burial methods harm the environment: embalming buries gallons of toxic fluids underground with each body, while cremation causes about 360,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide each year. Composting methods for livestock carcasses were perfected in the past few decades, but composting a human body-especially in an urban environment without available farmland, and using composting materials and processes respectful to human experiences with death-hadn't yet been addressed.
[...] The company also worked with lawmakers in Washington to legalize human composting as an option in 2019. As of 2023, the practice is now also legal in California, Colorado, New York, Oregon, and Vermont.
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