Would You Ever Consider Turning Your Dead Body into Compost?

Regardless of how morbid it is, we can’t help but be fascinated about what actually happens to someone’s body when they die (a lot of cool and creepy things take place, as a matter of fact). And now, a new non-profit organization is hoping to change the way corpses are treated post-death.

The organization, called Urban Death Project, has created an initiative to compost dead bodies into soil-building material as a sustainable solution to overcrowding in cemeteries, especially in cities. Wait, what?!

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Here’s the deal: The deceased would be placed inside a mound of carbon-rich materials like wood chips and sawdust. Moisture and oxygen would be added (and other adjustments would be made) as needed. The body, over the course of a few months, would eventually break down into a soil-like material. The newly created material could then be used for composting (the process of taking decomposed materials and recycling it into fertilizer).

And since you know you’re wondering, the process shouldn’t be smelly, thanks to the wood chips, the sawdust, and the speed at which the composting occurs.

Once this is complete, loved ones can collect the compost material to use in their gardens or to plant a tree. The rest (it’s anticipated that most composting would yield enough soil to fill a three-foot cube) could go to neighborhood parks.

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Founder Katrina Spade says she came up with the idea after noticing that her children were growing up quickly—and the fact that she was going to die one day hit her. Spade didn’t like her two post-death options—cremation or burial.

Around the same time, she discovered that some farmers were doing livestock composting, and so she decided to create a new option for humans. “I just really liked the idea of a natural burial,” she says.

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While the project is still in its fundraising stage, once it’s up and running, Spade plans to charge around $2,500 for composting. That fee also includes a ceremonial shrouding of a person’s body in linen and a laying-in ceremony with loved ones before the body is placed in a three-story “core,” where the composting would take place.

Spade notes that a typical burial costs around $10,000 and cremation is typically $3,000. However, she says her long-term goal is to eventually have death care be free for all people. “We created a non-profit for that reason,” she says. “Death care relies on selling things to people when they’re at their most vulnerable and grieving. It doesn’t make sense.”

Interested in funding the project or maybe even want to sign your future self up for it? You can do so on Urban Death Project’s Kickstarter page.

Tell us: Would you ever sign a loved one or yourself up to be composted?