A few weeks ago we took the opportunity to discuss a new means of disposing of the dead when we focused on the Lifegem, a process by which an individual’s earthly remains are turned into a stone suitable for mounting into jewelry. This being Urban Gardening week, it’s ripe for discussing another, more organic method of disposing of your loved one—by turning the deceased’s body into soil-ready compost.

When an animal dies in the wild, nature has a way of breaking the critter’s corpse down quickly and efficiently, by way of carrion eaters, bugs, bacteria, and finally the plants build on the last of the remains. The creature goes back into the earth in very direct fashion. Man does not have this luxury for a number of legal and ethical reasons, all of which are in perpetual controversy. For the most part, you simply can’t bury the dead without the toxic aspects of cremation, formaldehyde, or a sealed casket getting involved.

Traditional casket burials are unsound in that, even without formaldehyde, the body takes a long time to rot in the oxygen-depleted depth at which the bodies are laid to rest, particularly within sealed caskets. Apparently the water table is adversely affected when the body has not been allowed to rot naturally. The cremation process, on the other hand, is unsound in that it is enormously costly in fuel, and more importantly, it releases mercury and other pollutants into the air. Organic interests have been up in arms about this for years. A Swedish group called Promessa seems to have created a gap-bridging solution.

From the Promessa website:

Within a week and a half after death, the corpse is frozen to minus 18 degrees Celsius and then submerged in liquid nitrogen. This makes the body very brittle, and vibration of a specific amplitude transforms it into an organic powder that is then introduced into a vacuum chamber where the water is evaporated away…The now dry powder then passes through a metal separator where any surgical spare parts and mercury are removed.

The idea is that a total removal of water from the body reduces the biomass by around 70%, at which point what we have is an organic power that does not decompose when kept dry. This powder is placed within a cornstarch container and can be buried at a shallow depth. Through contact with the moisture of the earth, within 6-12 months the remains will be turned into pure compost.

In short: They freeze-dry you, vibrate you into powder, vaporize the water out of you, remove all your fillings, bone pins, and body piercings, and then pack you up in a biodegradable box.

Here’s the sentimental bit: At the time of the burial, loved ones may opt to plant a tree or some other sort of rooted vegetation above the remains. The new lifeform shall take nutrients directly from the soil, now rich with the fertilizer made from the deceased, and the circle of life is far more intact than any other commonly-used method of burial.

Mary Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

With silver bells and cockleshells, and the remains of my late husband Joe.

Promessa homepage [promessa.se]