Giving Compass' Take:

• In this story from Pacific Standard, Hallie Golden interviews CEO of Recompose, Katrina Spade. Recompose is a Washington State company trying to create a human composting facility in Seattle, and promises that the practice is a green alternative to conventional burials and cremation.

• Spade highlights benefits of human composting, including that it takes up less space than conventional burials and that it can save over a metric ton of carbon emissions when compared to cremation. Do these upsides make human composting a worthy investment for donors?

• To learn about the big impact of composting food waste, click here.

When people die, usually one of two things happens to their bodies: Either they are buried below ground in caskets, or they are cremated, reduced to bone fragments by intense heat. But Washington State could soon get another option—human composting. This turns the body into nutrient-rich soil naturally in about 30 days.

In the process that [human composting company] Recompose has devised, the body is placed in a vessel with wood chips, alfalfa, and straw, which work to decompose the body. The company co-sponsored a recent trial at Washington State University that determined recomposition is safe and effective, and [CEO Katrina] Spade and her team say it uses only one-eighth the energy of cremation.

The interview [with Spade] that follows has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

One of the reasons you argue for recomposition is the positive environmental impact it could have. Can you say more?

One of the reasons I started developing the concept was because I found out that both cremation and conventional burial have a significant carbon footprint. Thanks in part to sequestration of carbon that occurs during the process, it has been estimated that recomposition will save just over a metric ton. That means that for every person that chooses to be recomposed instead of cremated or buried, it will save just over a metric ton of carbon, which is pretty significant. I think one of the things for me, in addition to that carbon savings, is just having a way to create usable soil. Something that you can go grow a tree with and have sort of this ritual around that feels meaningful.

Read the full interview about human composting by Hallie Golden at Pacific Standard