Author: Derek Beres / Source: Big Think
- Recomposition is the process of turning human bodies into soil.
- Recompose founder Katrina Spade dreamed up her company after learning about livestock being composted.
- Washington might be the first state in the nation to legally add this as a viable option for the deceased.
Funerals are rarely joyous occasions. This is a matter of culture, not an unalterable fact of death. The ceremony, as presented in America, is mostly an opportunity for the living to contemplate their own mortality. Our common burial ritual—somber, sober, quiet—rarely inspires relatives and friends to honor the deceased as much as mull over their eventual end.
Yet funerals are perfect opportunities to pay tribute to those who are gone in an inspiring manner. Millions of people in Jamaica (and hundreds of millions around the world) were shocked when Bob Marley passed at age 36. Sure, there was introspection and sadness, but the ceremony was, as the video below shows, filled with singing, dancing, and positive vibrations, which is exactly what Bob would have wanted from such an affair.
Most of us will not influence the world like Marley, but that does not mean we cannot have a positive impact on the planet we leave behind. In fact, regardless of what happens to our body, burial or cremation, we will fertilize the earth in some capacity. Best to do it in the most eco-friendly manner possible.
Enter recomposting. Instead of purchasing an overpriced casket and paying ludicrous amounts for services—the American funeral industry is currently valued at $20.7 billion—recomposition involves converting organic human remains into soil. We’ve known about turning our bodies into trees for some time; recomposition is the soil in which tree urns are planted.
This movement is being led by Katrina Spade, who founded the Seattle-based organization, Recompose. She first envisioned her organization after a friend introduced her to the process of recomposting livestock after they die:
It was like a lightbulb went off and…
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