Today's Newsletter is a follow-up to an idea that I first covered back in 2015 (Strategic CSR - Compost):
"A non-profit group in Seattle hopes to become the first organisation in the world to tackle overcrowding in cemeteries by turning human corpses into garden compost."
The article in the url below shows that the idea has finally come to fruition:
"Ashes to ashes, guts to dirt. Governor Jay Inslee signed legislation Tuesday making Washington the first state to approve composting as an alternative to burying or cremating human remains. It allows licensed facilities to offer 'natural organic reduction,' which turns a body, mixed with substances such as wood chips and straw, into about two wheelbarrows' worth of soil in a span of several weeks."
And the resulting compost can be taken home:
"Loved ones are allowed to keep the soil to spread, just as they might spread the ashes of someone who has been cremated – or even use it to plant vegetables or a tree."
The idea came from an architecture graduate student at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Katrina Spade:
"She came up with the idea for human composting, modeling it on a practice farmers have long used to dispose of livestock. She tweaked the process and found that wood chips, alfalfa and straw created a mixture of nitrogen and carbon that accelerates natural decomposition when a body is placed in a temperature- and moisture-controlled vessel and rotated. … In 2017, Spade founded Recompose, a company working to bring the concept to the public."
As such, this idea tackles multiple problems at the same time — mortality, sustainability, and population density:
"Supporters say the method is an environmentally friendly alternative to cremation, which releases carbon dioxide and particulates into the air, and conventional burial, in which people are drained of their blood, pumped full of formaldehyde and other chemicals that can pollute groundwater, and placed in a nearly indestructible coffin, taking up land."
Of course, there are always detractors:
"[Senator Jamie Pedersen, the Seattle Democrat who sponsored the measure] said he had received angry emails from people who object to the idea, calling it undignified or disgusting. 'The image they have is that you're going to toss Uncle Henry out in the backyard and cover him with food scraps,' he said."
The intention is, of course, to create a respectful service that honors those who seek to reduce their impact, both during and after their lives:
"It gives meaning and use to what happens to our bodies after death," said Nora Menkin, executive director of the Seattle-based People's Memorial Association, which helps people plan for funerals. … Recompose's website envisions an atrium-like space where bodies are composted in compartments stacked in a honeycomb design. Families will be able to visit, providing an emotional connection typically missing at crematoriums, the company says."
Additional reporting on this story is available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/us/human-composting-washington.html
Take care
David
David Chandler
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Eco-friendly ending: Washington state is first to allow human composting
By Associated Press
May 21, 2019
The Guardian
