AILSA CHANG, HOST:
More and more Americans are reconsidering traditional burial options. Instead of caskets or cremation, they are considering greener methods like human composting. That's right. That's when your body is decomposed into the soil that can be returned to the land. The largest center in the U.S. for human composting just opened in Maryland. Scott Maucione from member station WYPR has more.
SCOTT MAUCIONE, BYLINE: From the outside, Earth Funeral's new 37,000-foot facility in Elkridge, Maryland, looks like a large office building. But inside, there are 126 slowly rotating vessels that kind of look like submarine missile tubes. They hold human remains as they decompose in the soil.
ADRIAN MATHURA: It's like my final gift to the earth when I die.
MAUCIONE: Adrian Mathura toured the facility during an open house and says he wants to be composted when he dies.
MATHURA: I have a home in the Shenandoah Valley, and we have a mountaintop in the middle of a valley, and I'm fine with my soil adding to the regeneration of, like, a worn-away hill.
MAUCIONE: Previously, people in the eastern half of the country would have to ship bodies to facilities in Washington state or Nevada if they wanted to be composted after death. Maryland's facility will service the entire East Coast. Human composting is about a month-long process that turns humans into nutrient-rich dirt using bacteria, fungi and mulch. In the end, about 300 pounds of soil is left over. Bones are pulverized and added to the soil, and then some or all of it is given back to the family or placed in land conservation projects to help plants grow.
MATHURA: It never seemed weird to me. It always made sense. If I can naturally compost, why not do that?
MAUCIONE: Mathura's part of a growing trend of Americans who are reconsidering traditional burial options. A survey conducted this year by Wake Forest University found that over half of the respondents would consider an alternative, like green burial or composting. Tanya Marsh, an expert in funerary and cemetery law at Wake Forest, says 14 states have legalized composting in the last 17 years, with more than a dozen more considering it.
TANYA MARSH: So this is an incredibly rapid amount of change in the law in an incredibly short period of time. Cremation - it took a hundred years of it being legal in the United States for it to even hit 10%. So it shows, I think, that Americans are really open to doing things in a different way.
MAUCIONE: Today, about 62% of Americans choose cremation, but cremation burns about 600 pounds of fossil fuels per body. The appeal for people like Mathura is that human composting doesn't emit any toxic emissions and also avoids the use of embalming fluids used in burials that could contaminate groundwater. It ends up costing slightly more than cremation, between 5- to $7,000, depending on the service. Maryland Delegate Jessica Feldmark was one of the lawmakers who helped legalize composting in the state. Her father was a scientist who cared deeply for the environment and passed away before the state legalized composting. The family sent his body to Washington state to be composted.
JESSICA FELDMARK: His remains are now in land conservation programs and environmental restoration projects in the Olympia, Washington, area - several different projects. And so, at some point, we might be able to visit there.
MAUCIONE: Feldmark says she's glad there's a facility on the East Coast now that partners with local organizations where families can more easily visit the new life their loved ones help create. Scott Maucione, WYPR News.
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