Biochar use in Green Burials

There are several methods to return human bodies to nature. Of course, simply dying & falling on the ground will work for that in nearly all environments except for Antarctica. There are always microbes and animals that will consume the body. Still, there has been a lot of effort given to the idea of doing this the right way.

Traditional burial is designed to prevent large animals from eating the body. Clearly animals have a major role in decomposing a body if it’s done naturally.

Accelerated composting of a human body has been proposed by the company Recompose. In fact, they have filed a patent application on their process. It takes at least 30 days to compost a body by their method, which does not use animal assistance other than microscopic creatures and some types of insects living in the compost.

Various insects could speed up the process quite a bit. Among these, leather beetles and the black soldier fly are particularly noteworthy. But there are people who don’t feel good about being eaten by insects.

I previously proposed hydrolysis of human bodies followed by composting. In fact, I filed a patent application on that. This method would accelerate the composting process compared to the Recompose method.

Since then, I have realized that biochar could play a large role in accelerating the composting process, so that the time delay between a person’s death and when the family could receive the compost would be much quicker. This concept is also patent pending.

The liquid hydrolyzate from a person’s body can be absorbed in just minutes in a tumbler with biochar. The resultant biochar containing the hydrolysate does not appear to be wet provided that the amount of liquid is within limits.

Biochar per se is a wonderful soil amendment, and the hydrolysate containing biochar can be directly put into planting for a tree or some other agricultural use.

However, the preferred method is to mix the biochar containing the hydrolyzed human remains into an active compost pile containing the right sorts of microbes for composting. This process works better if a little nitrogen-deficient biomass such as straw or sawdust is also added to the compost pile at the same time, to optimize the composting reactions which lead to the formation of humic acid salts (the optimum carbon to nitrogen ratio for composting is about 13:1).

The funeral industry is ripe for change. I myself as an environmentalist have been upset with my end of life options for a long time. And yet I recognize that there is an industry with some political clout that doesn’t want that change. therefore I have given quite a bit of thought to how the old death procedure could be changed without disrupting the funeral industry.

The concept of body hydrolysis followed by composting of the hydrolyzed body, and accelerated by the use of biochar is the best idea I’ve come up with for an environmentally sound way to handle the body after death, while at the same time memorializing the person by means of planting a tree or other living plants using the compost.

This is what I want to be done with my own body when I die. I remember my father saying that he didn’t give a damn what happened to his body after he was dead and his soul was gone. It would have been more comforting if he would have left us with more instructions than he did.

My mother on the other hand prepaid for a funeral and arranged for her own cremation. That was comforting to the family and I’m glad she did it.

It seems like the right thing to do to be prepared for what happens after you die. If not for yourself, then for your loved ones.