A movement defends eco-responsible burials with human compost in the US

A woodpecker perches on a branch while Cindy Armstrong contemplates a plot of land that used to be her son.

He smiles at the thought that the young man who died of cancer wanted his body to be transformed into compost to allow a new life to flourish.

His will is inscribed as part of a movement that advocates economic funerals in the United States.

Cindy remembers the moment when her son announced to her that he wanted to transform into humus after Washington became the first state in the country to legalize this alternative to cremation.

“I was mortified,” she recalls. “But now that I've reached the end of the process, I'm completely supportive. I will be transformed into humus,” he said.

The remains of his son made compost were joined with those of others with whom they seek to recover a hillside in the city of Kent, near Seattle (northwestern United States). A former refuge for drug addicts, the hillside used to be full of wrecked cars and sometimes riddled with bullets.

“I wanted to get back to nature,” says Cindy of her son Andrew, who died at the age of 36.

The land belongs to Return Home, which has carried out 40 transformations into humus since its launch in the neighboring city of Auburn seven months ago.

- To die better -

“It's like these people are teaching us how to die better,” says Return Home owner and founder Micah Truman, while visiting a large room filled with large metal containers, called “receptacles.”

Animated music is heard in the well-lit piece. The bereaved who visit it during the 60-day decomposition process can choose songs to celebrate the existence of their deceased family and friends.

Bodies are not embalmed to avoid the use of chemicals and concrete and metal are prohibited to limit the carbon footprint. Families deposit flowers or biodegradable materials on straw and other natural ingredients.

The amount of organic matter added is almost three times greater than the average human body weight, which makes it possible to produce hundreds of kilos of compost.

One sensors that monitor humidity, temperature and air act synchronized with a computer to optimize the decomposition process.

Halfway through, the bones are removed and crushed into fine pieces before being placed in the receptacle to be also transformed into compost.

The final product has the appearance and consistency of ordinary compost.

Families can keep as much as they want, while the rest goes to restoring the Kent hillside. Local town planning regulations prohibit all construction on the ground.

- Green funerals -

For Edward Bixby, president of the Green Burial Council, the process “consists of returning to earth as we come.”

“We were dust, we will return to dust,” describes the man who opened the first cemetery for natural burials in the state of New Jersey (eastern) five years ago, a modality implemented since then in ten other states of the country.

His organization has more than 400 members, some of whom live outside the country.

According to the entity, a single cremation needs as much fuel as the tank of an SUV - off-road vehicle - and bodies reduced to ash produce greenhouse gases.

Return Home services cost $5,000, about the same price as a cremation. You have to count twice or triple for traditional funerals.

It is possible to wrap the body in a biodegradable shroud or leave it in a wooden box, and then bury it.

The Californian company Coeio sells a funeral suit with mycelium, which must “neutralize toxins from the human body and transfer nutrients to the flora”.

Ecological burials propose a natural approach to death, according to their advocates.

“Horror movies and things like that” make people “afraid of death,” Bixby says. “We've always had the chance to take care of our own after his death, we just lost touch with that reality.”

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