You finally get motivated to do your will and then you arrive at the page about funeral arrangements. You consider the usual choices…

1.Regular burial– super expensive. This requires a huge amount of natural resources with a casket and headstone. All this takes up a lot of  space in the ground. Embalming agents that are placed in your body leak out eventually and pollute the soil and water.

2. Green burial– your body is wrapped in a shroud and then placed in the ground where nature takes its course. Hey, that sounds good! A DIY funeral.  The trouble is green burials are only allowed for residents living in rural areas and even at that is not legal in every location.

3. Cremation– your body is incinerated and your loved ones get a box of ashes to ceremoniously scatter- or not. Sadly, this method releases carbon into the atmosphere.

But now there is another choice!

4. Natural Organic Reduction, NOR, or put more simply, composting yourself.

In December 2020, Recompose, the first human composting facility open in Kent Washington. For about $5500 dollars your body can turned to compost in a matter of 30 days. After death Recompose will pick up your body and then place it in a white hexagonal pods where it will be covered with organic material. It will remain in a carefully controlled environment to assure proper decomposition. During that time the body will be slowly turned. At the end of that process your remains will be mechanically sifted to remove solid fragments.  Once your body is fully composted the soil can be taken by garden minded loved ones or donated to an ecological restoration project.

Two other NOR companies are starting up Washington as of this writing. Washington is the first state to legalize human composting.

Read a full article on Recompose from the Seattle times here