New York has become the sixth state to now allow residents to have their bodies composted and used as fertilizer.
In the quest for new and weird ways to be woke, so-called ‘human composting’ uses natural decomposition to turn people’s bodies into dirt. The process happens in a scientifically controlled facility under the supervision of a licensed funeral home. The remains of the dead can be used in gardens or forests.
Saving the Big Apple (no pun intended)
Widower Tiffany Miller, 64, of Long Island has already signed up to have her remains turned into plant food. “I can’t wait to spend the afterlife, giving new life, maybe as a zucchini plant,” the retired school teacher brags to GWU! “My generation has taken so much from Mother Earth and this is my way to give back. A penance, a peace offering.”
DEATH AND TAXES
Those in favor of the new trend in burial argue there are many environmental benefits in human composting. No material, fossil fuel or space is needed saving the environmental impact as well as cost of a traditional burial. The estimated cost of the procedure is $5,000 versus that of a traditional coffin or cremation funeral at $12,000.
WORM FOOD
“Who wants to spend eternity in a box?” smiles Miller, who acknowledges that while the idea initially seemed strange to a ‘settler’ such as herself it’s actually nothing new. “This is how the indigenous returned their people to turtle island, it’s time to learn from the original inhabitants of this land.”
But some New Yorkers say the entire process is “offensive” and “gross”
“Where is the respect for the person that died? People are not disposable and recyclable carbon to be ground up like saw dust,” fumes Doug, a volunteer at a foodbank in Utica. “Life sure is cheap in this country but now, so is death.”
Doug continues that the whole process sounds like a “self indulgent hippie fever dream” and questions the actual environmental savings proponents claim from human composting.
HOW TO HIDE THE BODY
Doug however says that the process of breaking down a body and scattering its remains like manure is the ultimate desecration of the dead.
He says that the whole process sounds like a “self indulgent hippie fever dream” and questions the actual environmental savings proponents claim from human composting.
US human composting company Recompose asserts that with its service each person composted can save one tonne of carbon compared with a cremation or a traditional burial. Emissions of carbon dioxide are a major contributor to climate change, states the company as they act to trap the Earth’s heat causing the greenhouse effect. Traditional burials involving a coffin also consume wood, land and other natural resources that are not needed for human composting.
But Doug isn’t buying what Recompose and its customers are selling. “All this gruesome Gaia worship just so woke dead people can wake up on the wrong side of the dirt? Give me a break.”
