Is human composting the future of death?
Redesigning death with Katrina Spade, founder of Recompose, the world's first human composting center.
When I tell people I want to be composted when I die, I usually get one of three reactions:
“Ew, not for me.”
“Omg, yes—I want that too!”
A confused stare, followed by: “Wait… what?”
Chances are, you fall into one of these three camps. The idea of human composting might sound unsettling, foreign, or radical. Maybe the idea of returning to nature feels exciting and intuitively right.
Or maybe, if you’re like most people, you haven’t really thought about what you want to happen to your body after you die. It’s understandable—62% of people say it’s important to plan ahead for the end of life, yet only 21% actually do. But whether we think about it or not, the choice will one day be made. The question is: Will you make it for yourself or leave the people you love grieving and guessing what you would have wanted?
Most assume they’ll be buried or cremated, without realizing there’s another way. But both of these methods come with hidden financial and environmental costs. Conventional burial consumes vast amounts of land and resources, with many urban cemeteries nearing capacity. In the U.K., one in six cemeteries will be full within five years. Each year, U.S. cemeteries take in 64,500 tons of steel, 1.6 million tons of concrete, and 4.3 million gallons of toxic embalming fluid. Cremation, often thought to be the greener choice, still emits an average of 535 pounds of CO₂ per body—the equivalent of a 600-mile car journey.
And as awareness grows around the unsustainability of the death industry, so does the demand for greener alternatives: 68% of Americans now express interest in eco-friendly burial options. However, accessibility remains a challenge, especially in urban areas where land for natural burials is scarce.
Now, imagine this: A world where death nourishes new life. Where our final act is not embalming and preservation, but transformation and renewal. Where instead of marble headstones, stainless steel caskets, cement vaults, or urns full of cremains, what remains of us becomes rich, fertile soil—ready to support new growth.
For architect-turned-death-innovator Katrina Spade, this isn’t just a poetic idea. It’s a personal dream that she’s turned into a tangible reality. And if she has her way, it will be the future of death as we know it.
When I first saw Katrina speak at the end-of-life conference Endwell in 2023, I was captivated. She spoke about the company she founded, Recompose, the world’s first green funeral home specializing in human composting—a process that gently transforms human bodies into nutrient-rich soil through natural decomposition. But she wasn’t just talking about a more sustainable way to care for the dead. She offered a new way to think about death itself, one rooted in design, ritual, and sustainability. I caught up with her recently to learn more about human composting, the role of design in deathcare, and her vision.
Katrina’s story
Katrina’s journey to founding Recompose began in 2014 while she was getting her master’s degree in architecture and raising her two-year-old son, Kale. Watching her son one day, she had a sudden realization: kids grow fast—but so do adults. Seeing her son grow and develop each day made her acutely aware of time passing, and her own mortality.
“Then I thought, oh shit, I’m growing at the same rate,” she told me. “I don’t see it happening day to day, but I’m aging, too. And that means I’m heading toward death, just like everyone else.”
That awareness sparked a question: What will happen to my body?
She recalls:
"I knew I didn’t want to be embalmed and buried in a casket, but I wasn’t in love with cremation either. It felt too final, too industrial…That’s when I started looking into alternative death care and asked: “What’s the equivalent of natural burial for urban spaces? There has to be a way to return to nature without needing a bunch of land.”"
That question led her to an unlikely source of inspiration—livestock mortality composting, a process farmers had been using for years to safely and sustainably break down dead animals into nutrient-rich compost instead of relying on burial or incineration. If it could work for animals, why not for humans?
Enter human composting. Instead of being burned or buried in a metal box, bodies are gently laid into a specially designed vessel filled with wood chips, alfalfa, and straw, allowing microbes to break down the remains of the physical body naturally, like the forest floor. Then, the body is placed into a vessel, where decomposition takes place over the course of six to eight weeks. At the end, the family receives one cubic yard of soil (about the volume of a pickup truck bed), which can be used to nourish trees, gardens, or natural areas.
“It’s a transformation,” Spade explains. “In the same way that food scraps and leaves turn into compost, our bodies can do the same.”
The result? A gentle, natural return to the earth.
Restoring ritual
Human composting is more than just a new disposition method. It’s also a reclaiming of something we’ve lost: ritual. In modern society, many of the rituals that once helped us process death have faded away.
For much of history—before the rise of the modern funeral industry—caring for the dead was a deeply intimate experience. Families would sit by a loved one’s bedside until their final breath, wash and dress their body, and hold a vigil and funeral at home. A local carpenter might have built a simple pine casket, while the community came together to dig the grave and light candles to guide the soul’s passage. These rituals weren’t just acts of necessity; they were ways of acknowledging the reality of death, creating space to grieve, honoring the life of the deceased, and ensuring that the funeral remained a communal experience.
Today, unless you follow a particular religious or cultural tradition, you may find yourself unsure of what to do when someone you love dies—not because you don’t want to honor them, but because there’s no clear path to follow. Instead of gathering and marking the transition with ritual, many simply receive an urn from the funeral home or attend a standardized burial. Often, left to navigate both practical arrangements and grief without a meaningful or personalized way to say goodbye.
“With cremation becoming the norm, people have lost the ceremonies that used to mark death,” Spade explains. “We don’t really pause anymore. People just pick up the cremains from a funeral home and… that’s it.”
Recompose was designed to change that, offering a sacred space for grief and remembrance. Thoughtfully crafted with warmth and nature in mind, the facility offers a different kind of environment for families seeking an intimate, organic connection to the death care process.
Design plays a crucial role in shaping these experiences. Spade knew that introducing something as unconventional as human composting to the world would require not just science, but thoughtful aesthetics and intentional space-making. The words human composting can be off-putting at first. Some people instinctively recoil at the term, only to reconsider later when the process has been explained to them in-depth. But often, the biggest hurdle isn’t the words themselves—it’s confronting our own mortality.
"Bringing something as weird as human composting to the world means you have to bring good design with it," she says.
Interestingly, I’ve also had mixed reactions from all generations. I remember explaining the concept to my fiancé’s 95-year-old grandfather, expecting him to be horrified. Instead, he nodded and said, “Makes sense.” Having grown up on a farm, he understood the natural process of decomposition in a way that many of us—removed from the land—do not.
A well-designed death
Walking into the Recompose center in Seattle, Washington, you feel it immediately: plants, soft lighting, and natural imagery create an atmosphere that feels intentional and inviting.
Families engage with the space in different ways, whether through full ceremonies, private gatherings, or virtual services. Even for families who don’t hold a ceremony on-site, the design signals something deeper.
“If you walk into a place and see that everything has been thoughtfully designed, you know the same level of care is being taken with your loved one’s body,” says Spade. “Good design communicates respect, reverence, and trust.”
That intentionality goes beyond the design of the physical space. It's woven into the rituals that guide families through the composting process.
It starts in the Cedar Room. Inspired by home funeral traditions, this space offers a serene, private space for families to spend time with their loved one before the transformation into soil begins. This is often a time for quiet reflection, hands-on care like bathing or shrouding, or simply as a space to say goodbye. Later, families can return to reconnect with their loved one’s soil before it is returned to the earth.
Families then move into the Gathering Space, a calm, light-filled sanctuary surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows in shades of green and yellow, with a large tapestry of the forest inviting nature into the room. At its center sits the white, hexagonal “threshold vessel.” The vessel is a literal and metaphorical passageway to the Greenhouse where composting occurs. The space is used for ceremonies, small services, or quiet moments of reflection, with a lectern for speakers and a screen for slideshows.
This moment (the laying of the body on the vessel and eventual passage of the vessel into the Greenhouse) marks the transition into composting, akin to lowering a body into the ground during a traditional burial. Families are invited to take part in their person’s final act, placing flowers, letters, or simply their hands on their loved one before they are gently laid into the vessel. Ceremonies are often customized with music, guided breathing, guest speakers, or even a carbon cycle ceremony, a guided ritual that honors the interconnectedness of all living things—using breath, light, and plant materials to honor the transformation of the body into soil.
Once composting is complete, families can choose to take some of the soil home or donate it to a conservation site through Recompose’s Land Program. This program partners with nonprofit conservation organizations to use donated soil in restoration projects across the Pacific Northwest—helping to regenerate forests, grasslands, and wetlands while supporting wildlife. For some, this process offers a second chance to grieve and honor their loved one in a way that gives back to the planet. Spade recalls one family who returned months after their son's laying-in ceremony to plant a tree with his soil.
“They had two distinct moments to gather, to remember,” she says. “That’s a gift.”
A family effort
In many ways, Recompose reflects the values that shaped it: care, collaboration, and a deep belief that death, like life, is something we’re not meant to navigate alone. Historically, community has always been central to how we care for the dead, and for Katrina, it was essential in bringing Recompose to life.
When she transitioned from her early nonprofit, the Urban Death Project, to launching a full-fledged company, she needed a name. She turned to her friends and family for ideas. “We went through a lot of really cheesy names,” she recalls. Then, her mom suggested Recompose.
“To compose again—boom. That was it,” Spade says. A year later, her sister-in-law coined Precompose for the company’s pre-arrangement program.
But the family’s contributions didn’t end with naming. Katrina’s sister-in-law, a talented seamstress, created the large tapestry that now hangs in the Gathering Space. Her brother-in-law, an engineer, also helped design the hexagonal framework for the composting vessels.
“My family has played such an amazing role in the design,” Spade says. “Everyone has had a hand in it.”
The future of death
Spade holds a powerful vision for a future in which human composting isn’t just an alternative, it’s the standard.
“In 30 years, human composting will eclipse cremation as the default and obvious choice,” she says with conviction.
It’s an ambitious goal, but one that’s becoming more and more feasible. The world is changing. Climate crisis, urban overcrowding, and a growing desire to reconnect with nature have led many people to reconsider how they live, and how they’d like to die. Human composting offers a solution that feels at once ancient and innovative; one that mirrors the natural cycle of life on Earth.
And the momentum is building. Thanks to Katrina and her team at Recompose, Washington became the first state to legalize human composting in 2019, setting off a ripple effect. In just five years, twelve states have followed suit, with more actively considering it. As awareness spreads, so does curiosity. (If human composting isn’t yet legal in your state, you can help change that. Click here to learn how you can support legalization efforts in your community.)
“At first, people hear ‘composting’ and recoil,” Spade admits. “But then they think about it. And when they do, they realize—it’s beautiful.”
Perhaps the real question isn’t Why would anyone want this? but rather, Why haven’t we been doing this all along?
A new perspective
Spade’s work isn’t just about what happens after we die. It’s about how we live in awareness of death. The work has changed her in many ways. In particular, after more than a decade of human composting, she’s developed a new relationship with time.
“I know that it’s finite,” she says. “Watching my kids grow, I realize how fast it all moves. But instead of feeling panicked by that, I try to embrace it. To be present. To do work that matters.”
She also thinks often about legacy—not in the traditional sense of wealth or achievements, but in the impact we have on others. What kind of world do I want to leave behind? she asks herself. And how do I live now in a way that aligns with that?
A question & a reflection
Human composting is both new and ancient. The simple idea that our final act can be one of regeneration, not depletion, has always existed in nature. But we’re only now beginning to reclaim it.
One day, whether we like it or not, our lives will come to an end. And when they do, the choice of what will happen to our remains will be made, either by us or for us. Deciding now means ensuring that our final act reflects our deeper values and, just as importantly, removes the burden of choice from the people we love.
In a dream scenario, I’d have a green burial on my sprawling ranch in Colorado (which I currently do not own, but, hey, life’s not over yet)—somewhere my family could inherit, visit, and keep as a place of connection. But if that isn’t possible, human composting is my choice. Not just because of its environmental benefits, but because it allows the people I love to place me somewhere meaningful to them.
With families so often spread across the country, having a memorial site that feels accessible makes a difference. I know this from experience. We scattered my mom’s cremains and placed a memorial bench for her in places I don’t live (though I visit at least once a year), and while they are beautiful, I wish I could go more often. The travel itself can be a meaningful ritual, but when distance makes frequent visits difficult, it can also feel like a loss in itself.
Do you know what you’d like to be done with your body after you die? Would you want to be composted?
Let’s talk about it. Reply to this email or share your thoughts in the comments below.
– Maura
I’d like to be composted and turned into a rose garden ❤️
Ok . I am convinced it’s the way to go . Pun intended . But need more vessels. Need one on the east coast in New England.