Returning to our roots: The growing appeal of human composting

In March last year, a terminally ill man named Steve Wheeler walked into the office of a green funeral home in the US state of Minnesota and asked for something he knew was illegal.

Mr Wheeler, a social studies teacher, was dying from metastatic cancer and had been thinking about how he would be laid to rest.

“There has got to be something different than dropping this big box in the ground with a body that has all these chemicals and stuff in it," he thought.

After hearing the term “human composting” on a talk show, an intrigued Mr Wheeler began looking into it.

Human composting, also known as natural organic reduction, is the process of turning bodies into nutrient-rich material similar to soil.

A deceased person is typically laid in a cradle surrounded by organic material such as wood chips, alfalfa and straw. That cradle is then placed into a vessel for about 30 days.

Microbes break everything down to the molecular level, resulting in the formation of about one cubic yard of soil, which can be used to enrich conservation land, forests or even gardens.

Many people opt for human composting for environmental reasons, preventing the release of carbon into the atmosphere through traditional cremation or the expanding use of finite land for cemeteries.

Mr Wheeler, however, soon discovered the practice was not available in Minnesota and could only be done in a handful of states at the time. Most notable was Washington, which became the first to legalise natural organic reduction in 2019.

That is also when he met Taelor Johnson.

“I had just been to the first ever body composting conference in Denver,” Ms Johnson told The National. “It was interesting how this all came about for us.”

Ms Johnson, who is vice president and director of communications at Interra Green Burial by Mueller Memorial in Minnesota, met various human composting providers at the conference in March last year.

But she connected best with the team from Return Home, a company based in Auburn, Washington, to the south of Seattle.

“We worked out a process right there for us to be able to bring someone from our care into theirs,” Ms Johnson said.

When Mr Wheeler died at the age of 53, she and her team were able to fulfil his dying wish: transferring his body to Auburn for natural organic reduction.

“He was thrilled,” she said. “It created meaning for his own death to know that some good was going to come out of it.”

Watch - Steve Wheeler talks about human composting

Mr Wheeler’s story is not unique. Many people in the US who opt for natural organic reduction are unable to do it in their home state.

At the time of Mr Wheeler’s death, the practice was legal in seven states: Washington, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, California, New York and Nevada.

But the law was still waiting to go into effect in many of those or was pending further regulatory approval.

Since then, five states have passed bills legalising natural organic reduction and three of those, including Minnesota, approved it in May.

Ms Johnson and a “ragtag team of people” who were passionate about the subject, including former Minnesota state senator Carolyn Laine, worked to get the bill over the line.

“I got to testify in front of the House and Senate and talk about my experience with Steve,” she said. “It got added to a larger bill in Minnesota and got voted through.”

Licensed providers will be able to offer natural organic reduction in the state from July 1, 2025.

“I think once a state does it and shows that it’s working, it’s a lot easier for other states to follow,” Ms Johnson said.

“The message is often about empowering choice and finding more sustainable ways to help people choose their disposition.”

US Catholic groups have been leading the critical charge against the movement to legalise natural organic reduction and the intricacies of the practice.

The Minnesota Catholic Conference deemed it to be disrespectful to the human body.

“The main experience with composting for most of us is related to household waste such as eggshells and food scraps,” a statement from the organisation reads.

“We toss these unwanted scraps into a container to be broken down by bacteria and then spread around the garden.

"Disposing of human bodies this way goes against our common human desire to respect the dead.”

But Ms Johnson, who has attended laying-in ceremonies including Mr Wheeler's in Washington, described the process as “beautiful and meaningful".

She recounted emotional moments from funerals, one in which grieving family members placed their hands on the vessel of their loved one to feel the warmth being produced by the exothermic process.

“What I think is so revolutionary about this is it creates an extended amount of time to separate from your person’s body,” she said.

“You can literally feel the energy of their body even after they’ve died and the heat slowly taper off over time … it’s a stunning experience for people to say goodbye and let them go.”