Turning the dearly departed into new life

A NON-PROFIT group in Seattle hopes to become the first organisation in the world to tackle overcrowding in cemeteries by turning human corpses into garden compost.

The Urban Death Project, which hopes to ‘‘turn our deceased into soilbuilding material’’, is the brainchild of Katrina Spade, an architect who has been awarded an US$80,000 (NZ$103,000) grant to develop it.

‘‘The idea is to fold the dead back into the city,’’ she explained. ‘‘The options we currently have for our bodies are lacking . . . from an environmental standpoint, but also, and perhaps more importantly, from a meaning standpoint.’’

Spade is hoping to get her scheme up and running within three years, but it faces several legal hurdles.

‘‘There will be some regulatory work to do, but I’m confident,’’ she said.

The Urban Death Project plans to build a three-storey high concrete composting structure known as the core, which would be surrounded by spaces for visitors to gather.

Bodies would be inserted into the core after being wrapped in linen. Family and friends would be able to hold a ceremony to say a final goodbye to their loved ones.

The body would then be smothered with woodchips and other carbon-rich material. Over several weeks a corpse would be transformed into about one cubic yard of compost, which could be taken by the family or donated to nearby farms or community gardens.

‘‘The deceased are folded back into the communities where they have lived as the great potential of our bodies to grow new life is celebrated,’’ the group’s website says.

The decomposition process will produce heat, which should kill off dangerous pathogens.

Woodchips and sawdust will help break down gases, reducing unpleasant smells.

Supporters say niques are already large farm animals.

The project is just one part of a booming market in funerals. Each year, the US uses more than 90,000 tons of steel and 1.6 million hectares of trees used to build coffins.

Spade said the response to her idea had been, for the most part, positive. ‘‘People love the idea of [bodies being used to grow] trees,’’ she said. that similar techused to dispose of