Many of us who live in Sonoma County take steps to leave the world a better, cleaner place for future generations. We remove our lawns to plant native plants that require less water and encourage pollinators; we drive hybrid or electric vehicles to reduce CO2 emissions; we use organic compost to improve the soil in our gardens. What, then, can we do to avoid polluting practices after we die?
Current funerary practices are environmentally problematic. Each year, 2.7 million people die in the U.S., and most are buried in a conventional cemetery or cremated. Cremation burns fossil fuels and emits carbon dioxide and particulates into the atmosphere. Conventional burial consumes valuable urban land, pollutes the soil, and contributes to climate change through resource-intensive manufacture and transport of caskets, headstones and grave liners. The overall impact of conventional burial and cremation is about the same.
One innovative organization, Recompose, has devised a solution known as natural organic reduction or human composting. While in architecture school in 2011, Recompose founder Katrina Spade began thinking about updating contemporary death care practices with a sustainable alternative, one that would nourish the land rather than take away from it. After years of extensive research with green death care experts, ecologists, biologists, legislators and more, human composting emerged. It’s been legal in Washington State since 2019 and is now legal in six other states, including California, where it will be available in 2027.
Café Mortel is pleased to present Recompose Outreach Advisor Laura Sullivan Cassidy to share the Recompose journey so far, describe how human composting works and why this end-of-life option is such a benefit to the earth and to humanity. She will also discuss the current status here in California.
Join us in the Berger Center on Wednesday, September 6, at 3:00 pm until 4:15 pm to learn about the Recompose story and human composting. Laura will join us from Seattle via Zoom. All Oakmonters are welcome to attend in person or via Zoom.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89163452574?pwd=UXZldjZrc29Vb3d0czFEbW85V01vQT09
Meeting ID: 891 6345 2574
Passcode: 986956
Contact linda@autumnoflifeplanning.com for more information.
