General information from a recorded webinar, not legal advice for your situation.

What is human composting?

Quick answer · 0:38 · From Natural Options at the End of Life: Green Burial, Water Cremation & More · Recorded Oct 22, 2026

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Short answer

Human composting, or natural organic reduction, turns a body into soil over about six to eight weeks, much like backyard composting. It produces about a cubic yard of soil that the family can keep, scatter or use. Think of it as a cross between green burial and cremation.

Key points

  • Also called recomposition or terramation.
  • About a cubic yard of soil, enough to fill a truck bed.
  • The family gets the soil back.

Angela Woosley, M.A.Mortician and end-of-life doula, Inspired Journeys · Guest presenter

Read this part of the transcript

So this is a process where I tend to think of it as, imagine a cross between a green burial and a cremation. In a green burial, it’s easy to become a tree, but your family has to go to where your tree is. With cremation, you can take your person home and then you can disperse them, scatter them, keep them at home, bury them, place them in a niche. NOR gives you back the soil of your person, and it is a process that truly is very parallel to composting that you might do in your backyard. So there’s a container, and you place that person into the container with some organic material, and over the course of about six to eight weeks, they are essentially returned to soil or kind of, well, compost.

Created automatically from the recording. Full transcript on the webinar page.

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