A Post About Compost

Human compost.

image created by author

If the idea sends chills down your spine or straight up terrifies you, we need to talk.

So please, have a seat. By the end of this post, you may feel different.

I know it is challenging to imagine a scenario in which you cease to exist, but if there is one thing we all have in common, it is this one:

If you were born, then you die.

That’s it. I know I’m stating the obvious here, and yet in my experience this has always been the most controversial and difficult topic to talk about. Almost with anybody.

I remember as a child asking questions about death to grownups and one of the most common reaction I would get was a friendly slap on the shoulder with a Eeeeh! You are young!

It soon became clear to me that death is one of those things people don’t like to think of, much less to talk about -for all the Encanto aficionados here, death is like Bruno, we don’t talk about it no, no, no.

I believe it is very important to talk about death and what happens to our body after we die.

The earlier in life we start that conversation, the better. As it is a natural and unescapable part of life, we need to reflect on it, we need to understand the impact of it and we need to organize it, just as we would do when planning a trip somewhere or moving to an other place.

So, if you haven’t thought about what to do with your body once you are passed, I invite you to start right now.

If you don’t think and decide what happens to your body after you die, the people that survive you will make that decision for you, probably settling for the current default options of traditional burials or cremations. The impacts of these two methods on the environment are harsh, but luckily those are not the only options out there.

It is best to make an informed decision and start by understanding this:

What happens to our body after we die?

It rots, of course. It starts decaying minutes after death occurs and, depending on your burial method and other variables -like the climate you are in or the soil acidity, you will be down to your bones in one decade or less. To better understand the timing of decomposition, I recommend this recent article.

Given that after death our body is clearly done with this world and it is just trying to disappear as quickly as possible, I’ve always found the human attachment to dead bodies interesting. All that effort to try to make a corpse look nice, dressing them all up and using embalming fluids and other heavy chemicals to preserve their lively looks, just to lock them in a box, throw them underground and never look at them ever again.

What are we keeping those dead bodies rotting in boxes for years anyway, I wonder. Hoping they’ll get back somehow? Are we secretly wishing for grandpa to come back as a zombie?

Anyway, let’s dig a little deeper than six feet under and see our options, shall we?

• Classic underground burials. Choosing the common casket is generally done for religious reasons that have become unquestioned tradition. These burials are largely expensive and take up a lot of real estate. Plus, unless you are the Pope or the Queen, your bones and that mighty box of yours will become waste and will need to be disposed at some point, making it so that you are still polluting this planet long after your departure.
• Cremation. In a way, burning yourself is nice because it reduces you to ashes, requiring little to no space for your conservation. On the other hand, a single cremation puts about 190kg of CO2 into the air, the equivalent of driving 470 miles. People die every second, think about how much burning that is every day.
• Donating your body to science. Have you ever been to one of those Real Bodies exhibitions? Those are bodies of people donated to science after they passed. That exhibition is one of the most informative experiences of learning about the human body accessible to people who are not in the medical field. Of course, donating your body to science would also and foremost help the people involved in medical research which are constantly learning new and more efficient ways of saving lives. And did you know it is cost free? Learn more about body donation to see if that’s an option that would suit you.
• Green burials. Here we enter the green zone of what I like to call the afterbody, navigating options that are not always the cheapest but if you are going to spend that load of money on your funeral anyway, might as well do it on something that leaves the world a better place while at the same time honoring your memory.

Here I share an exhaustive guide to green burials that goes in great detail of methods and costs. You’ll notice at a first glance that most green options are less expensive than traditional ones.

It is interesting to learn that if having a more traditional underground burial is important to you, you can do that at a lighter expense for your pockets and for Mother Earth.

I’m sure you won’t mind having a less cushy box to rest your bones in, you are not actually sleeping in there, you silly.

I am glad to learn that eco-friendly options are becoming increasingly popular. For my purposes, I am going to share my favorite method:

HUMAN COMPOST.

I first learned about human composting around ten years ago thanks to an Italian company, Capsula Mundi, which has changed the way I see death and cemeteries.

Though the product is still in the makings, the concept is simple and incredibly beautiful: our full body or remains are placed in an egg-shaped biodegradable urn which is buried in soil and a tree is planted on top of it.

I recently learned about an American company, Recompose, that specializes in human composting in a different way than Capsula Mundi does. While it is still a little pricey and not accepted in each state, I find the whole process so soothing and respectful of the circle of life, I currently can’t think of a better way to go.

If you want to learn how human compost works, I recommend this powerful video made by famous Ask A Mortician star and writer Caitlin Doughty together with the founder & CEO of Recompose, Katrina Spade.

As I have never been a fan of killing trees in order for me to be boxed underground, I personally find the idea of nourishing a tree (or better, a forest!) after my body no longer serves me very appealing.

I am certainly not planning on zombieing my way back to this world, so when my time comes, just let me go my own way: I want to be naked and ugly; I’d like to have no box, take no space at all, and become delicious food for land. With all the plants I’ve eaten in my life, I owe it to them.

For me, human composting is the most respectful way to go. Given some time to allow the practice to become more broadly accepted and less expensive, I like to see it as the future.

I don’t want a tree to die when I do.

Instead, I would like for a new tree to be born.

I don’t know what you stand for and what method will you choose, but I am curious and interested in knowing your opinion, so hit that reply button and let’s talk.

It would be very kind of you to decide the future of your own body and not leave this planet with unfinished business.

…you know what happens to those souls with unfinished business, right?

Thanks for reading,

Jessica

P.s. if you are like me and you believe it is important to start the conversation about death early in life, follow my writing journey as I am about to publish my humorous and sentimental illustrated book for children about death. It’s the transformative story of a grandma that first becomes a lemon and later a chair. You can read one of the three rhyming stories included in the book in my earlier post This is The Story of How My Grandma Became a Lemon.