A bill to legalize human composting — also called “natural organic reduction” (NOR) — was defeated in the 2023 General Assembly session.
What is human composting and where did it come from?
The process originally was developed to prevent the spread of disease through livestock carcasses.
Now there are attempts to use composting to turn deceased people into a disposable commodity: a soil mix that is developed through a complex and multi-month process that involves mixing a deceased persons with items such as mulch, bacteria and fungi, and manually breaking apart the person’s bones, in warehouse-type facilities.
The result? Up to 400 pounds of mulch with human body parts mixed in, or 36 bags of compost, based on a cubic yard of human remains. Where do you put 36 bags of compost? A typical scenario is to use it in a public park, leaving people to unknowingly walk over someone’s deceased loved ones.
Human composting is not a green burial
Human composting is not a green burial nor environmentally friendly. Unfortunately, proponents tend to gloss over this reality.
Green burials, which respect both the person and the environment, already are legal in Maryland.
Green burials can take different forms, but typically involve respectfully burying a deceased person into the earth naturally, without embalming. The person is covered with a natural-fiber shroud or placed in a casket made of wood or other biodegradable material, not the metal or fiberglass typically used in modern burials. Burial takes place in a cemetery with a section dedicated to green burials.
Human composting ignores the dignity of the human body
On the other hand, human composting — available information puts the price at about $5,000 to $7,000 — is complex. It takes months and violates Catholic teaching on the dignity of the human body.
The 2016 Vatican document “Instruction Ad resurgendum cum Christo” highlights why burials should respect the human body:
“By burying the bodies of the faithful, the Church confirms her faith in the resurrection of the body,[8] and intends to show the great dignity of the human body as an integral part of the human person whose body forms part of their identity.[9] …
“Furthermore, burial in a cemetery or another sacred place adequately corresponds to the piety and respect owed to the bodies of the faithful departed who through Baptism have become temples of the Holy Spirit and in which ‘as instruments and vessels the Spirit has carried out so many good works.’[10]“
Misleading language such as “natural organic reduction” has been used to describe proposed new burial technology.
A new document from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ doctrine committee (March 23, 2023) helps clarify what these technologies are. It also explains the problems with human composting (NOR):
“The end result of the human composting process is also disconcerting, for there is nothing left but compost, nothing that one can point to and identify as remains of the body. The body and the plant material have all decomposed together to yield a single mass of compost. What is left is approximately a cubic yard of compost that one is invited to spread on a lawn or in a garden or in some wilderness location. Like alkaline hydrolysis, human composting is not sufficiently respectful of the human body. In fact, the body is completely disintegrated. There is nothing distinguishably left of the body to be placed in a casket or an urn and laid to rest in a sacred place where Christian faithful can visit for prayer and remembrance.”