Devil’s Odd-Vocate: To Mulch, Too Soon?

by Cheryl in Roseville

Hallowe’en is in the air and this brings death and corpses and graves to mind. This doesn’t scare me. I’m no longer worried about ghouls consuming my flesh; I’m thinking of having that job done in house. I might assign that task to my own bacteria.

Pru and I recently went to a presentation by a company that wants to open a terramation facility in Minnesota. Terramation (a.k.a. Natural Organic Reduction or, more crudely, Human Composting) is the newest legal method of what the funeral industry politely calls “final disposition.”

The loved one’s remains are wrapped in organic cotton and placed in a vessel with layers of straw, alfalfa, and sawdust. Air is piped in and out, the temperature is monitored, and the vessel itself is turned as necessary to keep the biochemical process going. The body’s own microbiome breaks down the flesh and feeds off the nitrogen in the plant matter. A few weeks later, a corpse becomes about a cubic yard of potting soil*.

The upside of the process is fewer hazardous chemicals and less fossil fuel used than in burial or cremation. It costs about the same ($5,000-$7,000) as a cremation with a simple service.

The downside of the process is, as Pru put it, “EEEUUWW!” She is not alone. Nearly everyone I’ve told about terramation has turned a bit green, and not in the eco-friendly sense. I tried to explain to Pru that embalming only delays—not stops—decomposition, but she put her fingers in her ears and said, “LALALALA.”

Not that Pru is above a bit of creepy speculation herself. When Q&A time rolled around, she raised her hand and asked if the compost would show human DNA. (Pru loves her true crime shows.) I think she was worried some 18thcentury explorer’s genes might show up in her marigold bed and she’d be charged with murder. To her relief, the answer was no.

That did lead to an interesting side story, though. A farmer specifically asked for terramation when his time came and he was returned to his land afterward. It turns, “This farm has been in my family …” to, “My family has been in this farm … .”

Others asked technical questions. Are any bodies unsuitable for terramation? Yes, those with prion-based diseases and those radiation-seeded tumors. (I call dibs on the horror movie plot that is compost radiated to the point of returned sentience but afflicted with Mad Cow Disease.) What about toxins? Mercury fillings, drugs, and chemotherapy are converted into non-bioavailable chemicals in the process, we were told. Artificial joints, implants, etc. are picked out and disposed of after the first phase of composting. A stranger and I chatted in the parking lot about whether the 150-degree temperatures generated by decomp would offset some of the heating costs of the facility in winter. (I love hanging out with nerds!)

The meeting wasn’t really about persuading people to consider terramation for themselves as much as it was a sales pitch for investing in the proposed Minnesota site.

To that end, one of the PowerPoint slides listed all the awards the company’s flagship funerarium has won. I passed Pru a note.

“Imagine the pageant,” it said. “The other terramation business in Seattle probably had to settle for Miss Congeniality. They didn’t win the title.”

“Title?” Pru responded.

“Princess Decay,” I scrawled.

Pru kicked me—hard—under the table. Totally worth it.

*Yeah, yeah, I know mulch, compost, and soil are not the same things. Clarity beats accuracy.

 

©2025 Cheryl