Over the years there have been more and more unique ideas of laying our loved ones to rest. You can be turned into a diamond, blasted in a firework display, buried in a pod coffin to help grow trees, or turned into a flushable liquid through the process of Alkaline Hydrolysis. The possibilities seem endless and now there is another option refereed to as the Urban Death Project.
Katrina Spade is the founder and executive director of the Urban Death Project, a new system for gently and sustainability disposing of the dead using the process of composting.
The Urban Death Project is a compost-based renewal system. At the heart of the project is a three-story core, within which bodies and high-carbon materials are placed. Over the span of a few months, with the help of aerobic decomposition and microbial activity, the bodies decompose fully, leaving a rich compost. The Urban Death Project is not simply a system for turning our bodies into soil-building material. It is also a space for the contemplation of our place in the natural world, and a ritual to help us say goodbye to our loved ones by connecting us with the cycles of nature.
So what do you think? Spade made reference to the age old phrase, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” and that we have lost touch with turning our bodies to something that is beneficial for the earth and the soil. Could this be the new alternative to cremation?