Human Composting as Sustainable End-of-Life Option

By Lisa Charnley

A live petition before the NSW Parliament is calling for residents to be given the choice of human composting — a sustainable and community-led alternative to burial and cremation.

The petition, led by not-for-profit advocacy group Earthly Remains, is the result of several years of work by founder Tui Davidson, who first began researching environmentally sustainable body disposition methods in 2020.

“As an asthmatic, I became very concerned about the toxic emissions that result from cremation,” Davidson explains. “Around 80 per cent of Australians choose cremation because burial is so expensive and land is finite, but research shows cremation pollutes our air and burial also takes a heavy toll when you consider cemetery maintenance.”

Tui Davidson, founder of Earthly Remains

Natural burial — often hailed as the greenest alternative — is still problematic, Davidson says, as leachates can enter waterways over time. She was inspired to explore other methods after learning that Archbishop Desmond Tutu chose water cremation (alkaline hydrolysis) for his own disposition.

“In Australia, where drought is an ongoing issue, aquamation didn’t feel like the final answer,” she says. “But when I discovered the work of Katrina Spade in the United States (Recompose) on human composting, I became an instant fan. It just makes sense to me, to become part of the circle and cycle of life.”

In 2023 Davidson launched Earthly Remains, a not-for-profit dedicated to advocating for human composting in Australia.

“The funeral industry wasn’t moving on this. They were waiting for a market, and that kind of inertia meant it was up to communities to start the conversation. Death and disposition is as much a part of life as birth is — and for people to go into debt to say goodbye is wrong.”

Her vision is not just for human composting to be legally available in NSW, but for it to be offered by community-led, not-for-profit organisations.

“Just like Tender Funerals has transformed the industry with their focus on transparency, authenticity, and affordability, I see a future where families can choose human composting. If they can’t use the soil in their own gardens, it could be donated to regenerative land projects — a genuine last gift to the planet.”

Davidson acknowledges that the practice will not appeal to everyone. But she has witnessed growing public support for sustainable alternatives.

“Five years ago, people shied away from even talking about death and disposition. Now, especially since Ray Martin’s documentary series The Last Goodbye, people are leaning into these conversations.”

She has been working with a network of end-of-life specialists — with Jude Warren at the forefront beside Tui — to establish a regulatory framework in NSW that would make human composting both legally recognised and safely implemented.

Jude has worked for many years in palliative and community care in both the Blue Mountains and the UK. While rewarding, nursing felt restrictive, and during her time in the UK she created a hospice-based wellbeing role, supporting people who were bereaved, living with illness, or caring for loved ones. That role opened up creative, community-led approaches to life and death.

When Jude returned to the Blue Mountains in June 2024, she was inspired by the growth of natural and holistic funeral services. This led her to found Eco Rest – Exploring Natural Death Matters, a community forum where people come together to discuss sustainable choices such as natural burials and human composting.

Human composting might sound confronting, but terms like Terramation can feel gentler. It’s a carefully developed process, first pioneered by Recompose founder Katrina Spade, and continues to be researched and refined. As Recompose explain:

“The biological process mimics the earth’s natural cycles in a controlled environment and is similar to what occurs on the forest floor as organic material decomposes and becomes topsoil. Human composting is powered by beneficial microbes that occur naturally on our bodies and in the environment.”

A single human body creates around 0.76 cubic metres of nutrient-rich soil, which can be returned to forests, reforestation projects, or gardens. In the US, regulation varies state by state, while in Germany the soil must be placed on consecrated ground. These are important considerations now facing NSW legislators.

To raise awareness and push for change, Jude brought together a working group including Tui Davidson, advocate and founder of Earthly Remains, and Bec Lyons, president of the Natural Death Advocacy Network (NDAN). Together they are calling for Australians to have this sustainable death care choice — and that’s why signing the petition is so important.

This movement isn’t just for environmentalists. It matters to anyone who cares about land, legacy, and future generations. Animal composting is already well established in agriculture; human composting is simply an urban solution to the same natural cycle. As Earthly Remains say:

“Every body can help the planet.”

Many people dream of returning to nature when they die. What they often don’t realise is that cremation ashes offer no nutrient value to the earth, while human composting gives back as deep, rich soil.