In recent years most Americans have turned away from the traditional formaldehyde-pumped bodies buried in caskets on top of one another in overcrowded cemeteries and opted for cremation instead. Although cremation is less harmful to the environment, it still requires massive amounts of fuel and spews out millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, so really it’s not all that great.
Companies working within the death space are scrambling for alternatives. From launching cremated remains into space to natural sans-formaldehyde burials and using human remains to shore up an ocean reef in need, apparently there are a few new choices.
A company in Seattle has developed the world’s only large-scale Terramation facility, taking the death space a new direction: down, back into the earth as fertile soil.
As defined by Return Home, terramation is a form of natural organic reduction. In other words: human composting.
“The processes we’ve invented at Return Home over the last couple of years appeal to anyone who wishes to leave an environmental legacy while giving their loved ones the gift of fertile soil to use as they see fit,” says founder and CEO of Return Home Micah Truman.
Using a combination of sensors, software, and specially constructed vessels, Return Home gently transforms human remains into fertile soil in just 60 days. The soil is then given to loved ones to use as they wish.
The company describes the process in four phases.
Soil, straw, and plant growth.
Phase one is called “laying in,” where the body is laid in a vessel along with organic materials such as alfalfa, straw, and sawdust. Families and loved ones are invited to add letters, flowers, and other organic materials.
Phase two is called “terramation.” In this phase, oxygen flows through the vessel, which stimulates microbes in the body to become superactive. The microbes quickly transform the body into organic matter.
Phase three is the “resting” phase. Here the soil is removed from the vessel to rest. Within 60 days, the fertile soil is ready to return to the earth.
Phase four, the final phase, is where “life grows on.” The soil is delivered to the family to be used to plant a memorial garden, a grove of trees, or be donated to nurture land in need of revitalization—all for the not-so-small fee of $4,950.
However, for now, human composting is only legal in three states: Colorado, Oregon, and Washington.
But if turning your body into a form of nonedible soylent green doesn’t do it for you, there are other alternatives.
Water cremation—or aquamation as it’s also called—is becoming more and more popular in the green death movement.
“This has no emissions, it’s greener, it’s a clean technology to work with,” Samantha Sieber, the vice president of research at Bio-Response Solutions, tells The New Republic.
The scientific name for this water-based process is alkaline hydrolysis, and the process is fairly simple.
A body is dunked in a high-pressure chamber filled with water and lye. The water is then heated to anywhere from 200 to 300 degrees, and in six to 12 hours, all of the flesh, blood, and muscle dissolves. When the water is drained, all that will remain in the tank are bones and dental fillings, which can then be crushed into ash and displayed, buried, or scattered. But for now, this option is limited to the 15 states that allow it.
The natural burial movement started in 1998 with the opening of the all-natural cemetery Ramsey Creek preserve in Westminster, South Carolina. Many natural cemeteries double as nature preserves, giving people the comfort of knowing that their loved ones actually contributed to the ecosystem after death.
“You're actually benefiting the environment," Mark Harris, author of Grave Matters: A Journey through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial, told Live Science. "You're allowing the body to rejoin the cycle of life."
For those who are committed to cremation but who would also like to give back, there’s the Eternal Reef option. The Georgia-based company uses cremated remains mixed with concrete as artificial reef material to restore reefs, attracting fish and other organisms that turn the remains into an undersea habitat.
