Cremation might seem like a mess and a waste; the nutritive potential of the body is literally set on fire. By contrast, said Philip Olson, a technology ethicist and professor at Virginia Tech who studies death, Recompose’s method seems clean and useful.
Putting a body through this process “makes it compost, which is this nutrient-giving, life-sustaining thing,” Olson said. That’s appealing in an era defined both by accelerating climate change and a culture defined by productivity. Natural decomposition feels like a way to short-circuit the fear that “we are the virus”, while staying optimized, even in death.
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