‘Transformation into life’: Your dead body could become ‘beautiful’ soil thanks to terramation

Kristoffer Hughes has spent 32 years working with the dead. And he thinks we've been doing it all wrong.

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Treated as a “problem to be solved”, bodies are embalmed with formaldehyde to preserve their appearance, which leaches into the soil – “because God forbid that anybody should look dead, right?”

Cremations have become disposal systems where families wait in line as an average 280kg of CO2 per body spews into the atmosphere. And elaborate coffins are buried six-feet-deep in graves lined with breeze blocks, releasing potent methane rather than allowing the earth and oxygen to permeate the box.

As a practising Druid – Kristoffer is Chief of the Anglesey Druid Order in Wales, an ancient Celtic spiritual tradition that reveres nature – treating death with such finality “didn’t sit well” with his philosophy of life, death and rebirth. But it’s not only spiritual, he argues.

“This body is not ours to keep. As an anatomist, I've always considered that every single molecule in our bodies is given to us on a ‘quantum universal loan program’. And upon our deaths, it is our responsibility to give those molecules back to the earth that provided it in the first place.”

So when Kristoffer discovered human composting, it “completely blew my mind”, he says.

Also known as ‘terramation’ or natural organic reduction (NOR), the eco-friendly funeral method turns human remains into nutrient-dense soil. It produces around 90 per cent less CO2 than cremation and requires no embalming chemicals, which can leach into groundwater for years.

“As a Druid, the thought of becoming a gift, rather than a burden, that my death will not be the end, fills me with glee,” says Kristoffer.

What’s it like to become human compost?

Of course it’s not possible to ask someone what it’s like to be composted, but Kristoffer came as close as you can get without actually dying.

While filming for BAFTA and RTS Award-winning Welsh-language TV series ‘Marw gyda Kris’ (Death with Kris), he attended his own funeral at Return Home, a human composting facility in greater Seattle.

Being sealed in a “pitch black vessel” – their term for the stainless steel chambers used in the process – was “momentarily terrifying”, he recalls, but then “I had this epiphanous moment”.

With the “smell of summer” emanating from the nitrogen-rich alfalfa, straw and woodchips that fill the chamber, “I felt this immense calm of being wrapped in this duvet of natural, organic materials,” he says.

These materials react with the air and microbes in the body to transform it into rich compost – a process that takes around 30 days, with the vessel being turned four or five times to circulate the air.

The vessel is then opened – surprisingly it “just smells of petrichor”, says Kristoffer – and the bones are separated out to be ground into small particles that the microbes can consume. They are then recombined with the compost in a smaller container for around another 30 days.

After that, you’re left with around 110 kilograms of “perfectly dry, beautiful, stunning soil”, which sequesters the body’s carbon rather than releasing it into the atmosphere. “It’s not on a journey of disposal, but of transformation into life,” says Kristoffer.

When this realisation hit during his mock funeral, “Every ounce of existential fear, anxiety just left me,” he recalls.

“All of that energy that was in my body… would, by this beautiful natural process, become fuel and food and nourishment. And they opened the box and let me out, and I stood up and just and wept.”

What’s it like for those who are left behind?

Terramation is not only “transformative” for the dead but also the loved ones they leave behind, says Kristoffer.

Compared with “conveyor belt” crematoriums that facilitate a “constant stream of disposal”, human composting gives you 60 days to “sit with your grief, to allow it to settle”.

It’s not just about sitting with a dead body – “but a dead body who is turning into life”, he says.

You can even feel it: Kristoffer recalls encountering a woman at Return Home who had wrapped her arms around a vessel. “She described how she could feel her mum hugging her back. She could feel this subtle vibration inside the box. But also this immense heat permeating through it.”

And she said she was becoming more than her mum – “she was becoming Mother Earth”.

For some, coming this close to a decomposing body might elicit squeamishness. But this is exactly what human composting gives us the opportunity to address, argues Kristoffer.

The “closed-doors secrecy of most funerals” stems from an “imposed Victorian sense of dignity that allows the imagination to run amok”. But human composting is “founded on transparency”.

As part of this, Return Home gives loved ones the option of attending a “laying in ceremony" – where they can cover the body in the vessel, which Kristoffer likens to “tucking them into bed”.

The facility also provides optional updates on every step of the process, detailing what’s happening to your loved one and who is taking care of them. “This provides immense comfort to the bereaved that the utmost care and dignity was provided to that person,” says Kristoffer.

When the compost is received at the end of the process, many families hold a more “life affirming” ceremony, where they might share it out with friends.

“And that’s really refreshing, in that it isn’t just: Funeral. Full stop. It's over. You'll get a pot of ashes in two weeks’ time,” says Kristoffer. “This is a process of emotional relocation and assimilation of grief. It's a gradual acceptance, an understanding of transformation into life.”

Compared with traditional funeral costs, which average between $7,000 to $12,000 (€6,000 to €10,400) in the US, Return Home’s full package costs $5,500 (€4,750). If rented as a ‘disposition facility’, like a graveyard or crematorium would be, it costs $1,100 (€953).

Is human composting coming to Europe?

Outside of the US, where human composting is legal in 14 states, only one state in the north of Germany partially allows it. A pilot project in Schleswig-Holstein, which introduced the country’s first burial forest for compost from human remains in 2024, is paving the way for potential legalisation of so-called 'reerdigung' (reburial) in neighbouring states like Hamburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

But support is growing across Europe – and it’s attracting unlikely advocates.

“People don't talk about death when they're young. But when it comes to terramation, the 16-35 demographic is extremely vocal,” says Kristoffer.

“That demographic is not just considering what they're recycling, what their carbon footprint is. But they're also willing to consider how their death will contribute to the ecology… I’ve had conversations with 17-year-olds who say ‘I want to be terramated when I die’.”

In the UK, a government commissioned report on new funerary methods, including human composting and alkaline hydrolysis, will be published this spring, after which the government has six months to respond with its next steps.

Alkaline hydrolysis or aquamation – a water-based alternative to cremation – was approved in Scotland in March 2026, a promising signal for Kristoffer’s home country, Wales, which might similarly be able to pass a bill independently of Westminster.

Full UK approval could hinge on industry-wide regulations for the funeral sector, according to Kristoffer, or country-dependent legislation dictating where facilities can be located and where the compost can be used.

Human composting even has the potential to address Europe’s compost shortage – recently made worse by heavy rainfall – providing much needed nutrients for reforestation schemes, he suggests, or help to revive soil degraded by excessive agriculture and pollution.

If and when it’s approved in the UK, Kris is ready: he’s just returned from seven weeks’ training as a terramator with Return Home in the US, and has launched Eterrna Life, which he co-directs with garden designer and fellow Druid Chris Cooper-Hayes.

“It’s so logical, it just makes sense,” says Kristoffer. “At the end of my life, rather than use the Earth’s gas, which is finite, rather than be pumped for the formaldehyde and hydroxyls, which then pollute the soil, I'd much rather turn round to the Earth and say ‘Here’s 250 pounds of compost. Knock yourself out, love, and get yourself some trees… and then become food, life’.”