Last week was a difficult milestone for Sean Hanna of suburban Los Angeles.
It marked one year since he lost his partner Stephen Staunton to brain cancer. Staunton was an avid gardener. He was also a really big fan of eating mushrooms.
“He had heard something about your body being transformed into mushrooms, and his favorite food was mushrooms. And he just thought that might be a really cool idea — if he became a mushroom,” Hanna laughs.
So when Staunton died, Hanna set out to make that dream a reality. That’s how he stumbled upon a burgeoning industry that offers “terramation.”
Just like cremation is a euphemism for body incineration, terramation simply means composting human remains. The big selling point: It’s a natural process that creates almost no pollution.
Earth Funeral’s new facility in Las Vegas houses 75 of these vessels, where the composting process takes place. Photo courtesy of Earth Funeral.
Hanna chose to do that through a company called Earth Funeral. Its co-founder and CEO Tom Harries explains their simple, four-step process:
- “Step one is gently washing your body and wrapping it in a biodegradable shroud.”
- “Step two is placing the body on a bed of organic mulch, wood chip, and wildflower.”
- “Step three is optimizing temperature, moisture, and oxygen levels that creates the perfect conditions for microbes to break the body down.”
- “And step four is you're left with nutrient-rich soil.”
The method is very similar to a backyard compost pile. It needs the right combination of carbon-rich and nitrogen-rich organic material to work. It needs periodic mixing or “agitation.” Just like any composting, materials get added and nothing is burned, so the final product is actually larger than the body itself: 200-300 pounds of soil.
Harries says most families choose to keep a small portion of that soil, and then most of it gets sent to fertilize conservation land that the company has either purchased or partnered with.
It’s attractive to the environmentally-minded because the most common forms of body disposition in the United States have a significant climate impact.
Just like any composting process, terramation requires carbon-rich and nitrogen-rich materials, including mulch, wood chips, and flowers. Photo courtesy of Earth Funeral.
"The traditional funeral industry as it exists right now in the U.S. is really resource-heavy,” says Brie Smith of Return Home, another terramation funeral home. “We have casket production, we have obviously the vault for the outside of the casket.”
The vault is a resource-intensive concrete and rebar casing that rests beneath cemetery lawns of the drought-striken Southwest. Even so-called green burials frequently include the vaults and the thirsty lawns.
Almost 30% of Californians choose traditional burial. Meanwhile, 68% choose cremation, which has a fraction of the environmental impact, but it’s still as pollutive as driving a gas-powered car several hundred miles.
“It's just a bunch of propane and high volumes of carbon releasing into the atmosphere,” Smith says.
And Harries says spreading ashes on a garden or tree actually doesn’t help them grow. “They're probably slightly damaging, if we're being truly honest.”
Earth Funeral services cost roughly $5,000, comparable to an average cremation, and cheaper than a no-frills traditional burial in a simple casket.
California legalized this process, but that law doesn’t go into effect until 2027 to give state agencies the time to research and prepare for this new industry. That’s why Earth Funeral just opened a brand new facility over the border in Las Vegas, to accommodate the interest it has received from customers in the Southwestern U.S.
Staunton died before this facility opened. His partner Hanna sent his body to Washington state. The soil that he became fertilized trees in the Olympic peninsula.
A small portion of Staunton’s soil returned to his family. His brother spread his portion on a campground they visited when they were kids. His mom used her soil to fertilize her vegetable garden in Maine. And Hanna spread his over the plants that they potted together just before he died.
When his time comes, Hanna has options closer to home. But that doesn’t matter. He wants to be in Washington state too.
“That was one of my favorite rainforests — the Olympic National Forest,” he says. “I’d want to be where he is.”
