TV presenter hopes to offer UK's first human body composting service

A TV presenter and author hopes to provide the UK's first human composting service as an alternative to cremation or burial.

Human composting, also known as terramation, is when the body of a person who has died is placed in a sealed vessel containing organic matter. Over the course of several weeks, the body turns completely to soil.

Terramation is not legal in England or Wales, but a consultation on the subject for the UK government by the Law Commission is due to be published imminently.

Kristoffer Hughes, who recently returned from the US where terramation is legal in several states, said he believed the practice could offer a "deeply ecological and spiritually meaningful" alternative to cremation or burial.

This story contains details about human composting funeral services which some readers may find upsetting.

Hughes, a broadcaster, author and leader of the Anglesey Druid Order, spent three decades working for coroners across the UK and abroad as a specialised mortuary technician.

Those experiences led him to examine approaches to death across the world for the S4C documentary series Marw gyda Kris (In Dying with Kris).

"I genuinely didn't think there was anything left to surprise me in the death service world," said Hughes. "Until we went to a human composting facility."

Hughes visited Return Home, south of Seattle in Washington state, the world's first large-scale human composting facility.

There, instead of burial or cremation, the bodies of the deceased are placed in a sealed vessel containing organic matter such as alfalfa, straw and wood chips.

After 60 days, all that remains is a rich, fertile soil.

The soil is returned to the families of those who have died, to use to grow whatever they want in memory of those they have lost.

Hughes himself lay in one of the caskets to experience it.

"It felt like being immersed in summer," he said.

"I was surrounded by natural organic materials. It smelt good.

"And I realised at that moment that my body was not going to be disposed of, but rather transformed.

"Of all the ways I've seen death handled around the world, this felt the most natural, the most honest - and the most hopeful."

Back home on Anglesey, what Hughes first witnessed in Washington state has now become a passion.

He said he was inspired by the work of Dr William Price, a self-proclaimed druid who was put on trial in Cardiff for trying to cremate his deceased five-month old son in 1884.

Price was acquitted, leading directly to a new law allowing cremation in the UK.

"[Price] was always an inspiration to me as a death service professional, but also as a druid," said Hughes.

"So when I came across terramation, I was like 'wow - do you know what, it could be a druid in the 21st Century that actually brings another facet of end-of-life and death care into being'."

Hughes and his colleague Chris Cooper-Hayes, who has a professional background in landscaping, have founded Eterrna, a venture they hope could become the very first to offer human composting in the UK.

They have recently returned from the US, where they returned to Return Home to become the some of the very first people in Britain to be trained in terramation.

But being trained in the process is perhaps the easiest hurdle to overcome.

A year long consultation by the Law Commission for the UK government which has reviewed new funerary methods, including human composting, is due to be published soon.

It could provide a framework for changes in current laws to allow terramation.

A process known as water cremation was recently legalised in Scotland as a new funeral process.

The Ministry of Justice said it is awaiting the findings of the latest review.

"We are aware of the growing interest in alternative funerary methods and we will respond to the Law Commission's report in due course," said an official.

However, the issue would remain devolved to Wales.

The Welsh government said it was following the Law Commission report and would "consider the devolved implications once it is published".

Hughes believes the case for human composting is so overwhelming that he is actively searching for individuals who want to take that step when they die.

"Cremation produces significant carbon emissions and traditional burial takes up land and resources," said Hughes.

"Human composting gives us another option - one that's deeply ecological and spiritually meaningful.

"At the end of the process, you become soil that can grow forests, feed gardens, and nurture new life. It's the most beautiful continuation I can imagine."

Hughes said he was also confident that a terramation service would be comparable with the cost of traditional funerals, once it becomes established.

He said the cost of the service in the US was considerably cheaper than a traditional funeral.

According to research published by SunLife in its annual study into funeral costs, the average price of a simple funeral in the UK last year was £3,800, with an additional £1,300 spent on flowers and catering.

More than half of the services are for cremations, while burials are about £1,000 more expensive.

But while Hughes and supporters believe human composting is a win-win for both the environment and bank balances, it has faced opposition.

In the United States, the Catholic Church has campaigned against human composting wherever legislation has been introduced to implement it.

Back in 2022, when New York State was preparing to approve the practice, the state's Catholic Conference urged voters to contact its governor to voice opposition.

"The New York State Bishops oppose this bill because composting is a process typically used for household or agricultural waste, and does not provide the respect due to bodily remains," the Catholic Conference told the Catholic Courier newspaper at the time.

The Vatican itself has not spoken on the matter, but in 2016 did set out its position to recommend that the bodies of the deceased are buried in cemeteries or other sacred places.

While it does not oppose cremation, it does ban scattering of ashes.

The Anglican Church in Wales said it had been a member of the Law Commission consultation reviewing human composting, but an official said it had "not taken a position on proposed new funerary practices".

While Hughes awaits the outcome of the consultation, he said he wants to facilitate have a national conversation about a subject that is often seen as taboo.

"I think we've struggled in the west to have honest, sincere, discussions about death. Our western denial of death has been very Victorian," he said.

"But I think things are changing."

He said he would like his body to undergo terramation, when his time finally comes.

"I want this for me. I want to be something that gives something back, and that my body is honoured for that.

"At the end, I can turn around to the planet and say 'Here you go love, there's 250lbs of compost, knock yourself out and get yourself some trees'. Isn't that lovely?"