Not often (if ever) do we like to think about death. It’s not a topic we are generally willing to discuss at length and far too often we leave ourselves unprepared for its arrival. And so without much thought, we go through the motions of the same post-death rituals that have been done for years and years. While different cultures have different ways of mourning/celebrating the life lost, the majority of bodies in North America are buried or cremated.
The intense emotional and personal attachment to the deceased person means any notions of sustainable behaviour go out the window and we choose burials that involve massive amounts of wood and steel products for coffins and highly toxic embalming or we choose cremation that emits 540 lbs of carbon dioxide in to the atmosphere per body.
The idea of a loved ones body decomposing is unimaginable to us. So much so, we’d rather they be burned to ash or filled with toxic embalming fluids – a seemingly irrational way of thinking about death.
Enter the Urban Death Project. Still in the design phase, with a Kickstarter soon starting, the Urban Death Project seeks to add a third alternative for honouring your deceased loved one – by letting them decompose. In the middle of these proposed decomposition centres is a large core where bodies are gently decomposed among wood chips and sawdust.
Image by Katrina Spade for the Urban Death Project
The idea still has much to be fleshed out, well past just the design. This type of sustainable service would require a complete overhaul of the way we think of death. For some, it would be an appealing concept in that our bodies are returned to a natural cycle and will be part of the Earth again. While others, especially those with differing views of afterlife or reincarnation, would be incredibly hard to convince that there is even an alternative to their burials and cremation.
It will be an incredibly hard task to market this idea and I’m interested to see what happens. Leave your own reactions in the comments!
For more info on the Urban Death Project click here.
Check out these articles on the Urban Death Project:
The Architect Who Wants to Redesign Being Dead (The Stranger)
What to do with our bodies after we die? (Huffington Post)
Hey Connor,
I’m going to be blunt here, my initial reaction to the Urban Death Project was that it was a terrible idea. I felt that simply placing our dead into a glorified compost chute was disrespectful. For me, the current ways of mourning our loved ones allows us to emotionally AND physically remember their lives and honor them. Burial combined with a tombstone or some other landmark designates a specific physical spot to be remembered. Cremation creates physical ashes that the family can treat in any way they wish. Putting your loved one in a chute for decomposition in my opinion misses the physical aspect, because the compost will be a mixture of many different bodies.
I do agree though that we need to have alternatives to burial and cremation, as the environmental hazards are substantial. A possible solution I’ve read about that ties Urban Death Project with the need for physical remembrance is Memorial Trees. I like the idea because it is sustainable (trees are carbon sinks) and also provides a physical touch-point akin to a tombstone. The one flaw with current methodologies is that they assume a body has already been cremated. Examples can be found here:
http://www.usurnsonline.com/memorials-2/memorial-tree-urns/
http://www.letyourlovegrow.com/
In my opinion, a better solution would be applying Urban Death Project’s decomposition know how with the idea of a Memorial Tree. A tree would be planted on top of a decomposing body rather than cremated ashes, which saves on carbon emissions and provides a carbon sink. Personally, I’d love to be the fuel for a new chestnut tree… since I love chestnuts.
What do you think, Connor? Do you think the idea of a memorial tree would be easier to market than Urban Death Project?
Hey Vincent,
I was just as shocked by the idea of the Urban Death Project as you. It’s definitely a huge change from how we currently honour our dead, and definitely something that would be extremely hard to market. I don’t agree with the project as it stands now but what I do like is that it forces us to open up a dialogue on this issue, which many would surely shrug off before. I think that the memorial trees are definitely a much easier to market alternative and I like the idea as well. I think the idea of needing a physical place of remembrance is more of a societal construct that grew out of the practice of burying our dead rather than the other way around. It’s simply what we’ve known and so we can’t imagine doing anything else. But yes, the Urban Death Project is quite flawed in this respect as it doesn’t take in to account our strong emotional ties to the body of our deceased loved one.
It’s interesting to see other projects starting around sustainable death, like this women who creates biodegradable garments for the deceased to be buried in: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/fashion/designer-creates-clothes-grave-article-1.1466145
This, again, is a hard thing to market as we currently like to bury the dead with the clothes they loved to wear in their lifetime. I don’t necessarily know if this is a hugely important area of waste that we should be focusing on but its another area of discussion that has opened up due to a clear focus on sustainability in areas we would never have thought to look at.
Thanks for the comment! I find this topic pretty interesting.
Hi Connor!
Really interesting blog post about the Urban Death Project. From what I read initially, my first impression was that they were laid down separately and decomposed with wood chips and such. But after reading Vincent’s comment, I now have the impression that they’re tossing bodies into a big closed off area of wood and dust. A little off-putting if you ask me, though I’m sure the concept is a little more gentle than my latter idea of Urban Death Project. I do find like the idea, but I feel this also might come into conflict with religious beliefs. I’m not religious myself so I wouldn’t know any specifics, but I feel with people with strong beliefs may cause an uproar with this idea. What are your thoughts in terms of religion?
Thanks!
Katie