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I Turn People into Trees Walt Patrick On 3/3/21 at 12:01 PM EST
We were gathered on a chilly overcast December day to start him on his journey back to the forest. He had loved Washington s rainforest and the kaleidoscope of life it produced. And now, rather than be locked away in a standard burial vault, his remains were about to be reduced and returned to nurture the forest.
My father was a naval officer, so my early life involved a lot of moving. By the time I d graduated from college, I d attended sixteen schools and had traveled a lot. But when I came to the Herland Forest in 1987, I knew I d found my forever home.
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According to
The Seattle Times, a new kind of funeral home is the first of its ilk to open in the United States. Located somewhere in the acres of warehouses and light-industrial workshops spread of Kent, WA, you ll find the first full-service human-composting funeral home in the United States is now operational.
It s taken about ten years to plan, research and raise funds for the project, not to mention having to overcome the hurdle of changing state law, but Recompose is finally converting passed away people into soil. The first bodies were laid in on December 20, 2020.
Looking like a colossal piece of white honeycomb, Recompose has 10 “vessels,” each in the shape of a hexagon, approximately 8 ft. long and 4 ft. high, enclosed in a steel cylinder full of soil. The process is known as natural organic reduction (NOR).
Listen • 17:05
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There are some fairly exotic ways to have your Earthly remains handled once you have ceased to occupy them. You can have your ashes shot into space, or you can leave your body to medical research.
And you can help other living things grow, by having your remains released to the Earth organically.
Cornerstone Funeral Services in Boring, Oregon does traditional burials, but also offers a green burial service.
And
Herland Forest in southern Washington offers an option that amounts to turning a human body into compost. Elizabeth Fournier from Cornerstone and Walt Patrick at Herland Forest join us with details of their services.