US: World’s first human composting site to open in 2021

Generally, when a human being passes away, they are generally buried or cremated. Now, a world-first facility has been set up to offer a unique alternative ritual to traditional choices i.e compost. The world’s first funeral home dedicated to composting human beings is set to open in 2021. 

The site will be able to hold 75 people at a time

Recompose, which is scheduled to begin operations in Seattle, Washington in 2021, bills itself as the world's first human composting facility, offering to gently convert human remains into the soil, in a process it calls "recomposition" or "natural organic reduction". The site will be able to hold 75 people at a time. The project was approved by Washington state legislators who voted to allow the style of burial known as natural organic reduction earlier this year – the first US state to explicitly do so.

The process takes about 30 days

The composting process takes about 30 days and is a greener way than cremation. According to Recompose, 2.7 million people die annually in the U.S., with the majority being buried in a cemetery or cremated. That results in carbon dioxide and particulates being emitted into the atmosphere. Not to mention burials and cremation consumes urban land, pollutes the air and soil and plays a role in climate change.

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'We help to strengthen our relationship to natural cycles'

But by converting human remains into the soil, the company argues it minimizes waste, avoids polluting groundwater with embalming fluids and prevents CO2 emissions from cremation and the manufacturing of caskets and headstones. "By allowing organic processes to transform our bodies and those of our loved ones into a useful soil amendment, we help to strengthen our relationship to the natural cycles while enriching the earth," Recompose says on its website. The idea was inspired by green burials in which people's remains are buried in woodlands to decompose but Recompose's service is designed for cities where land is scarce.

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