The allure of becoming 'soil'

My parents died a decade apart.

Each of them was embalmed, placed in a casket, and buried inside a concrete vault in a family plot in the local cemetery.

In our family, everyone in that generation followed the same script.

It is not the script I want to follow. But I can see one advantage of the old family cemetery plot: It felt final.

The comfort of completion

As I watched those caskets being lowered into the ground, I felt the weight of sadness and loss. But I also felt a kind of resolution. We had completed a duty, and there would be stones to mark their graves.

As I ponder my own choices, I realize my survivors deserve some version of that same resolution. They deserve to feel they have completed their duties to me and my remains.

That thought adds an asterisk to any consideration of cremation, which is now the body disposition most Americans choose.

Cremation is convenient and often less expensive than conventional burial. It gives families time. No one has to choose a cemetery plot or plan an interment right away.

But as many families learn, cremation is not necessarily final unless someone makes a clear plan for the ashes. An urn can sit on a mantel, a closet shelf, or the floor of a bedroom for years.

The speed of managed decay

And yet an urn of cremated remains is relatively easy to manage compared with the new option becoming legal in more states: Natural Organic Reduction (NOR), often called human composting.

The idea is alluring: A body becomes something that can help nourish new growth.

I understand the appeal, because I feel it myself. Natural Organic Reduction avoids flame cremation. It avoids embalming, the concrete vault, and the manicured cemetery plot.

But it is not the same as a natural burial, which is often described as simple, natural, and complete. NOR is more managed and technical.

And it is not automatically complete for the people left behind.

In human composting, the body is taken to a facility and placed in a vessel with organic materials. According to Recompose, a Seattle-based company, each body requires about 3 cubic yards of organic, plant-based materials, such as wood chips, straw, alfalfa, or mulch.

Through a controlled process of heat, moisture, oxygen, and microbial activity, the body is transformed into soil-like material. Some NOR providers say that it can happen in 45 days.

That’s fast. Many factors affect the timing of a body’s decomposition, including the type of soil and the moisture and oxygen present.

The Green Burial Council estimates that after a natural burial it takes, on average, six weeks to lose most of the body’s soft tissue through moisture absorption by the soil. But complete decomposition of soft tissue can take up to two years, and bones can take decades.

So families might wonder: How fully “natural” is this NOR process, and how much is managed?

Then comes another question: What happens to all those composted remains? Typically, NOR providers say families will receive about one cubic yard of material. That amount can weigh several hundred pounds or more.

That’s far more than a typical urn of cremated ashes. So much more, in fact, that it seems to me to overcomplicate the matter of “returning to the earth.”

Where does it all go?

Some NOR providers suggest that the family keep some of the compost for a garden, a tree, or some other memorial planting. They typically offer to donate the rest to land restoration or conservation projects.

But there are health and environmental concerns to address. NOR is designed to reduce pathogens through a controlled composting process. Even so, it is not appropriate for every human body or every condition.

Maryland, for example, requires the authorization process to address implanted devices, radiological concerns, and certain infectious diseases or biological conditions before NOR can proceed..

There are also open questions about chemical residues in human bodies, including medications, chemotherapy drugs, heavy metals, and persistent chemicals such as PFAS.

So the resulting soil-like material needs to be treated with care, appropriate regulation, and sound ecological judgment.

Alas, a speedy “return to nature” is not necessarily as simple as it sounds.

Compost can help depleted soil. But more organic material is not always better. Natural habitats are living systems with their own plant communities and microbial life.

Also, composted human remains carry emotional weight. Earlier this year, a California tribe objected when composted human remains were spread on land along the San Joaquin River. Tribal leaders protested that using the lands that way was deeply disrespectful to Native cultures and ancestral lands.

Questions to ask

This is not to say that human composting is always a bad choice. But before you sign anything, I’d want to know:

How much material will we receive?

Where will the rest go?

Who decides whether a conservation site needs it?

Will these remains be tested for pathogens or infectious material before being released to us or spread anywhere else?

Will they be amended, monitored, or applied according to an ecological plan?

What are the legal limits on where it can be placed?

One more question

And there’s another important question:

Will this choice give my survivors a sense of completion, or will it leave them with a complicated task?

For some families, human composting may feel beautiful and meaningful. For others, the romance of becoming soil-like material may bump into the practical reality of receiving more compost than they can use, store, or handle emotionally.

Before we choose any form of body disposition, we owe our survivors more than a statement of values. We owe them a plan — and a discussion about it.

A greener death should not leave behind a heavier burden on the earth or on our survivors.