composting burial

There has been something of a rethink about our approach to death and burial, partly from the idea that death has become too institutionalised and impersonal, and that burial practices have not been environmentally friendly. The composting burial is a procedure that begins by placing the body of the person that has died in a casket along with wood chips, soil, straw and alfalfa. The heat created as the body decomposes speeds up the process and eliminates germs. Over a period of about four weeks the body is transformed into soil, some of which goes back to the family for ceremonial scattering or burial.  The rest of the human soil might go into a memorial park although there are legal and social problems with this still to be resolved. Just by comparison, traditional interment can require hundreds of years for total decomposition.  Composting burial  is also referred to as natural organic reduction, which is a more dignified name perhaps.