Burial Service Of The Week

Death is a fact of life and it pays to give some thought as to what you want done with your earthly remains. A firm from Kent in Washington called Recompose has just launched a human composting service which their appropriately named CEO, Katrina Spade, claims to be an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional burial.

The bodies of the deceased are placed in steel cylinders full of soil and covered with wood chips, alfalfa, and straw and are slowly rotated to allow microbes to break them down. After 30 days there, they are moved to what is known as a “curing bin” to complete the release of carbon dioxide. The remains, which according to Spade resembles a topsoil you could buy at a garden centre, are then either returned to the family, presumably to spread over their garden, or donated to an ecological restoration project in Vancouver.

Spade claims that the process saves more than a tonne of carbon compared with cremation or burial and that it is a very controlled process, completely driven by microbes. The process cots $5,500 with an optional service thrown in.

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