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Everyone is dying to try this new burial trend.
Eco-conscious New Yorkers can soon turn their corpses into compost as part of a brand-new program at Green-Wood Cemetery — and hundreds are already looking into becoming human “humus.”
The iconic graveyard announced last week that it would be the first in the entire East Coast to offer terramation, a process that allows grieving families “to memorialize their loved ones by returning them to the earth.”
“Terramation is an eco-friendly alternative method of final disposition that accelerates the conversion of remains back to earth,” the cemetery states on its website.
The process involves placing the unembalmed remains along with some biodegradable material, such as wood chips, inside a special high-tech casket-like machine that is able to rock back and forth so as to mix everything together and speed up decomposition.
Green-Wood Cemetery aims to start human composting in 2027, making it the first to put the process — known as Natural Organic Reduction (NOR) — into practice since it was legalized in the Empire State back in 2023.
The 200-year-old graveyard is working with German company Meine Erde to offer “greener end-of-life options.”
The high-tech casket-like device used to beak down the bodes control humidity and ventilation — and rocks back and forth, to accelerate decomposition, according to the company’s website.
Organic materials like clover, wood chips, straw and alfalfa are also added into the casket for microbes and bacteria to feed on.
After 40 days in the indoor device, the body is transformed into a 200-gallon batch of soil that Green-Wood can use to fertilize the lush 478-acre graveyard that is popular for movie nights, Sunday strolls and bird watching.
“Because the transformation takes place in sealed vessels inside a building, there is no open-air biodegradation, and odor is not an issue for visitors of the cemetery,” a representative for Meine Erde told The Post.
“The cemetery grounds remain fully accessible to the public in accordance with normal cemetery regulations. Once the process is complete, the soil is comparable in appearance and characteristics to rich, natural humus.”
In Germany, a memorial vine with nameplates detailing those who have given their bodies back to the earth lives at the composting fields, but it’s not yet clear how Green-Wood plans to memorialize such tombstones.
The process is in the early stages of planning, but Green-Wood says it has already recieved 240 inquiries about the NOR process since announcing it will soon be offered, a rep said.
The famous graveyard has also not revealed where on the grounds the human composting will take place, or how much the service will cost.
Meine Erde offers the full service for roughly $5,000 overseas, and similar companies in the US go for as high as $7,000 — which is significantly cheaper than the cost of a standard $21,000 gravesite at Green-Wood Cemetery.
More importantly, the process is much greener, with plans for the corpses to be used in planting and feeding fauna for years to come. The human made soil cannot leave the grounds, per New York State rules. but in other states it can be returned to the families.
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