A COMMITTED, Canberra-based environmentalist is championing human composting as an eco-friendly way of dealing with human remains. 

Tui Davidson, 52, is advocating a sustainable alternative to burials and cremations.

Her preferred method is human composting, a process in which remains are turned into soil.

“Human composting means you have an environmentally sustainable option that can be regenerative,” Davidson said.

She said human composting is considerably cheaper than burials, and offers a cleaner alternative to cremation.

“With burials land is finite, and it’s obscenely expensive, which is why people choose cremation,” Davidson said. 

“Cremations are a third of the cost, but they give off emissions, they are a pollutant.”

The process of human composting involves placing a body in a vessel with wood chips and straw. The vessel is turned gently, with about a tonne of soil returned in six to 12 weeks.

“The existing process in America is to have a honeycomb series of pods, which are vessels, that you put the body in and have a laying in ceremony,” Davidson said.

“Then you are constantly monitoring it and turning the vessel so the microbes, and the temperature, and the aeration are sufficient.

“You have beautiful compost at the end. It takes about six-12 weeks for the body to decompose, but it depends on the size of the body.”

While human composting breaks down most of the remains like cremation, the bones still have to be crushed, Davidson said.

“Exactly the same as in cremation, the bones need to go into a cremulator which crushes them down after the fire process,” she said.

“Human composting would also need to do that because you can’t break bones down in six to 12 weeks, so you’d need to take them out and crush them down as well.”

Families are then offered the compost material to use as they see fit, she said.

“Like a family can take ashes and spread them, with human composting a family could take their person, even if it may be a cubic tonne of beautiful compost,” said Davidson.

It’s a burial method that is gaining popularity in certain states in America.

The process was first legalised in the US in Washington in 2019, and is legal in other states including Oregan and Colorado.

Davidson said the enabling legislation is in place in the ACT and Tasmania, but it’s not a burial practice that is currently in use here.

“It’s not yet done in Australia, but the legislation that would allow for it is already in existence in Canberra and Tassie,” she said.

Davidson points to the ever increasing costs of burials. She also touches on the shortage of available land for burials, and the financial burden of maintaining cemeteries which often falls on local councils or government.

“Part of the costs of burial is that somebody needs to maintain the premises, and local councils and government cemetery owners are then struggling with those maintenance costs because land is finite,” she said.

Thinking longer term, Davidson has identified opportunities for human compost to be used in a variety of ways if space doesn’t allow it to be used in a family’s private garden.

“My idea is a partnership with the Arboretum, botanical gardens, or a community group that’s re-generating land and the compost could be gifted to them to use,” she said.

“If a family doesn’t have the space to plant a rose bush above their person in their yard, they would know that they are contributing to something visually beautiful for the community to enjoy.”

While traditional burial methods give grieving relatives a place to visit their loved ones, just as many don’t visit their dearly departed, and some not at all, she said.

“There are many people who don’t feel the need to go and visit somebody,” said Davidson. 

“My sister, mother and grandfather were very influential people in my life. They are dead now and I don’t need to go to a place to honour them. They live in my heart,” she said. 

Davidson is a strong believer of returning people to the earth, forming part of the circle of life, and participating in regeneration through the soil.

“I really believe in returning to the earth cycle, and also using earth’s creatures to help you decompose,” she said.

“There are many people who would happily see a circular economy, where you return to the earth, and you become a part of the land cycle.”