A “green” funeral home in Colorado has found itself in trouble this week after 189 decaying human bodies were found on the premises.
The corpses, which were emitting an “abhorrent smell”, had initially been thought to number 115 when the Return to Nature Funeral Home storage facility in Penrose, Colorado, was first investigated by authorities two weeks ago.
Now, as of Tuesday, 189 bodies have been removed from the site, but authorities have said that numbers could change once again as the process of identifying the bodies continues.
Return to Nature Funeral Home is a so-called “green” funeral home, which holds burial services without the use of embalming fluids to preserve the bodies. There have been no arrests or charges so far, and Newsweek has contacted Return to Nature for comment via Instagram.
The bodies left to decay are now being identified by an FBI team usually deployed for mass casualties such as plane crashes. Around 120 families are worried that their relatives could be among the remains, but it will be weeks until identification of the bodies is completed, using fingerprints, dental records, and DNA testing.
It is perfectly legal not to embalm a body in Colorado and most other states, but the cadaver must be refrigerated. Colorado law specifically states: “A funeral establishment shall embalm, refrigerate, cremate, bury, or entomb human remains within twenty-four hours after taking custody of the remains.”
“Embalming is not required in any state, except in very limited circumstances,” Tanya D. Marsh, a professor of law at Wake Forest University and a licensed funeral director, told Newsweek. “The Colorado funeral home was required to either dispose of the bodies within 24 hours or refrigerate or embalm them. Violation of this is a class 1 misdemeanor in Colorado, which carries a maximum penalty of 364 days imprisonment, not more than a $1,000 fine, or both.
“In addition to criminal liability, this funeral home also faces tort liability from the families of the deceased for ‘interference with the right of sepulcher’,” Marsh said.
Additionally, Colorado has fairly lax rules regarding funeral homes, with operators requiring no routine inspections or qualifications.
The reasons why this funeral home did not manage to refrigerate its bodies is still unclear. However, the owners of the Return to Nature Funeral Home had reportedly missed tax payments in recent months, and were being sued for unpaid bills. They had also been recently evicted from one of their properties.
“We’ll find out more facts as the case unfolds, but my guess in Colorado is that the funeral home either lost its contract with a crematory, or there was some other problem. They started to get a backlog of cases, and it just got out of hand,” Marsh said. “It is really indefensible, but unfortunately not the first time it has happened.
“For example, in the Tri-State Crematory case in 2002, a crematory in Georgia was found to have more than 300 bodies that it had failed to cremate and that were kept on the property in various states of decay. There were also a number of cases of funeral homes with an excess of remains during the worst of the COVID-19 crisis in New York City, and some of those funeral homes did not properly store those bodies,” Marsh added.
The reason for this tragedy is not because of the funeral home’s “green” practices, but instead due to the mishandling of the bodies.
“To be clear, the reason this happened is not because this was a green funeral home. I really think it is important to emphasize this. It is because it was a funeral home that did not follow the most basic rules of care for human remains,” Marsh said.
Green funerals don’t embalm the bodies to avoid transferring harsh preservative chemicals into the ground, and bury people inside more-biodegradable caskets.
“Green funeral companies seek to reduce the amount of chemicals that are put in the soil by using coffins made from untreated materials; wicker is popular in the U.K. They do not embalm as this avoids the embalming chemicals such as formaldehyde and so on. As a result, decomposition occurs more naturally and is quicker and more complete,” Stephen Hughes, a senior lecturer in medicine at the Anglia Ruskin University School of Medicine in the U.K., told Newsweek.
Usually, in place of embalming, a body must be refrigerated to prevent decay. However, it appears that the bodies at Return to Nature Funeral Home were improperly stored. Without being kept cool, a body rapidly starts to break down.
“The decomposition process begins immediately after death,” Mark T. Evely, director of the Mortuary Science Program at Wayne State University, Michigan, told Newsweek. “The rate of decomposition depends on environmental conditions such as temperature, humidity, the setting in which the remains are located, and the physical conditions of the deceased prior to death.”
Other experts worry that this may mar the reputation of mortuary services and green funerals alike, sparking distrust of the practice.
“A great amount of trust is placed in funeral homes by families to care for their loved ones. When that trust is violated, it casts suspicion on the entire funeral profession,” Evely said. “I don’t know the reasons why there would be remains found in the way they were at the funeral home in Colorado. What I can say is that someone failed the families of these loved ones and failed to comply with the legal requirements of the state and the ethical duties demanded by the funeral service profession.”
This case raises the need for contingency plans for funerary providers in the event they are no longer financially viable, or that something goes wrong, Kate Woodthorpe, director of the U.K. Centre for Death and Society, told Newsweek.
“We have the same issue in the U.K. with regard to protecting the buried dead: When cemeteries are no longer income generating or financially viable, what happens? As an island running out of space, this is a critical question that no one has really answered in terms of who is responsible for their maintenance and long-term upkeep,” Woodthorpe said. “It also raises questions about the need for oversight and regulation of ‘green’ above-ground disposal methods. Unlike cremation (over quickly) or burial (contained underground), this third method needs greater surveillance, given the consequences in the event of a company going bust, or a generator failing and so on.”
As the remains continue to be identified, the bereaved families will have to wait for the dreaded news that one of their relatives’ bodies was included in the tragedy.
“In this situation, they may feel guilty that they have made such a disastrous choice of funeral home,” Dr. John Wilson, director of bereavement services counseling at York St John University, northern England, told Newsweek. “Guilt is a complicator of grief, and these relatives may need professional counseling to overcome this. On top of that, they may be traumatized by press reports, and by imagining the scene at the care home, adding to the sense of having let down their lost loved one.
“Anger is a natural feature of grief, so there will be many relatives who are angry to the point of it being potentially unhealthy,” Wilson added. “Given that the number of close mourners for every death averages between five and 10 people, that is going to be a lot of people who could need counseling.”
When thinking of a funeral, many people might imagine a congregation of black-dressed folks staring at the ground while sad — perhaps with rain pattering on umbrellas for full, somber effect. But while sorrow itself is a natural response to the loss of life, funerals the world over often take on special flavors depending on culture, history, region, and so forth, some more lively or unusual than others. “Fantasy coffins” are all the rage in Ghana, shaped like lions, rockets, sneakers, Coke bottles, airplanes, you name it. Varanasi, India burns 24-7 funeral pyres to incinerate the dead before tossing their ashes into the Ganges river. Taiwan, meanwhile, has mafia-linked funeral strippers who dance and gyrate above coffins. And in New Orleans? It’s all about exuberance, joie de vivre, and music perfectly befitting them both: jazz.
In a way, nothing could suit New Orleans more than jazz funerals. A fusion of West African, British, Spanish, and French influences combined with Mardi Gras, Black Southern Protestantism, and the spirituals of enslaved Americans, jazz funerals are just as sui generis — a thing of its own — as New Orleans itself. As sites like Vox highlight, jazz funerals mourn the dead, but they also celebrate life and the hope of life after death for the one who’s passed away. Imagine a big, community brass band parade marching through the streets and you’ve got a good idea of what jazz funerals are like.
From the old world to the new
All sources point to New Orleans’ jazz funerals originating with indigenous, festive dance-and-music funeral processions in West African countries like Senegal and Gambia, as Vox explains. The Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies explains that ethnic groups like the Yoruba and Dahomean in the current-day nations of Benin and Togo have similar practices. Such practices revolve around celebrating the soul’s entry into the afterlife and connect to beliefs in the spirit world and a hierarchical cosmic order of God-spirit-human. This is why West African spiritual beliefs — when they arrived in the New World — ironically found a fitting home within predominantly Christian Americas.
Aeon, meanwhile, also cites cultural back-and-forth between New Orleans and nearby Caribbean nations like Haiti as helping give rise to jazz funerals. Notably, Haitian Vodou (also spelled “Voodoo”) retains celebratory practices meant to appease spirits. And of course, as French Quarter says, New Orleans has always been a hotspot for Louisiana Vodou for the same reason it spawned jazz funerals: slavery. From about 1480 C.E. to 1888 C.E., the Transatlantic Slave Trade took enslaved peoples from various African tribes to the Americas. Some of these individuals wound up in New Orleans, founded in 1718 by French-Canadian explorer Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville. From that point, New Orleans’ syncretic culture brewed.
Brass band, Mardi Gras, and spirituals
New Orleans’ founding as a French city added another critical piece to the jazz funeral puzzle: Mardi Gras, the French incarnation of the Catholic Lenten holiday of Shrove Tuesday, aka Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday. As Father William Saunders says on Catholic Culture, Shrove Tuesday was the Catholic liturgical calendar’s” last chance for merriment” before showing restraint during Lent. Traditions date back to ancient Rome, connect to pagan holidays like Saturnalia, were documented by the Anglo-Saxon clergyman Abbot Aelfric in 1,000 C.E., and by the time we get to the founding of New Orleans in 1718 involved celebratory processions and parades down the street, as Mardi Gras New Orleans describes.
New Orleans, meanwhile, was passed to Spain in 1763. It soaked up Spanish culture for 40 years before the U.S. bought it as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Per Metro, it was common for military brass bands to play funerals during this entire time. Such bands played the same instruments wielded in jazz come the late 1890s, when BBC says the musical form evolved into its familiar, syncopated, up-tempo form. But the roots of jazz, much like jazz funerals, dated back to 1819, shortly after Louisiana became a state in 1812. Per the BBC, enslaved Americans congregated in New Orleans’ Congo Square on free days, where African tribal dances and rhythms fused with colonial influences, brass band instruments, and one final component: Christian spirituals.
When the Saints Go Jazzing On
As 64 Parishes says, the first recorded version of a jazz funeral was witnessed by architect Benjamin Latrobe in 1819. West African influences were plain and apparent from the get-go, as those enslaved people engaged in “ring shouts,” a kind of call-and-response rhythmic dance circle that spins counterclockwise. Funeralwise says that the Catholic church wasn’t too keen on these kinds of gatherings — ironically so, given jazz funeral’s processional, celebratory connection to Mardi Gras. Nevertheless, it fell to Southern Protestant Blacks to engage in “public performances to consolidate a sense of community,” as J. David Maxson writes in Southern Quarterly.
On that note, Visit New Orleans says that jazz funerals typically incorporated the old folk spirituals that passed around the U.S.’ Protestant South, like “Nearer my God to Thee” and “When the Saints Go Marching In.” These spirituals strengthened community and united ancient traditions with present beliefs in a hopeful way. Even modern-day jazz funeral bands like the famed Dirty Dozen Brass Band still focus on spirituals, as their 2004 album “Funeral for a Friend” shows. Song titles include classic spiritual adaptations like “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” “Down by the Riverside,” “Amazing Grace,” “John the Revelator,” and more.
Joining the Second Line
After jazz funerals fused with late 19th-century, recognizably modern jazz, they marched unabated into the 20th century. Jazz swept the U.S. in the 1920s following the end of World War I but petered off in popularity in the 1930s because Americans started struggling for disposable income. But come the mid-20th century jazz funerals started becoming more widespread, in part because funerals themselves became more affordable. This was especially the case for well-known New Orleans locals — such as jazz musicians — who were honored with jazzy outros befitting their lives.
It was during this time that jazz funerals took on a standardized structure. Musicians played sad, somber, hymn-like tunes on the way to a cemetery, where a memorial service took place, and then played lively, celebratory music on the way back. This “second line,” as it was called, is the typically bouncy and exuberant part of the jazz funeral that gives it its signature flair, as seen above. Locals could join the procession on the way to the cemetery — provided they were respectful — but more than likely folks joined during the celebratory second half of the funeral. As Ausettua Amor Amenkum of New Orleans’ Tulane University recalls on Vox, “I come from the era when you’re in your house and you hear music and you go ‘Second line!’ and you run outside.”
Modern homecoming ceremonies
Jazz funerals exist to this day and have taken to incorporating other elements of Black American culture, like funk, hip-hop, and rap. Currently, jazz funerals are held not just for jazz musicians or prominent New Orleans personages but also for young people or other members of the local community who died suddenly or tragically. Interestingly, Alive Network says that the 1973 James Bond movie “Live and Let Die” played a significant role in letting the wider world know about jazz funerals. That’s also when the term “jazz funeral” took root. Nowadays, jazz funerals can be found around the U.S. and the entire globe. In 2015, for instance, Memphis hosted a jazz funeral for blues legend B.B. King.
The biggest and most prominent jazz funeral likely happened on August 29, 2006, in the wake of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. In case readers need reminding, Katrina and its flooding devastated low-lying New Orleans and killed a total of 1,833 people across Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Funeralwise says that thousands attended the jazz funeral conducted in honor of Katrina’s dead in downtown New Orleans, where residents had stood stranded the year prior.
While not everyone gets a jazz funeral, those interested can hire musicians for the task via agencies like Alive Network, including travel to cities besides New Orleans. And yet, on Vox musician Stafford Agee says, “I never liked considering a funeral being a gig. I’m performing for somebody’s homegoing ceremony.”
With the Earth screaming for attention through increasingly severe natural disasters, people are realizing our planet is vulnerable. After centuries of believing this world is immune to the ravages of human exploitation, abuse and disregard, a new movement some refer to as “greening” has dawned. With its spread and growing sophistication, more people are acting in novel ways to restore and nurture the long-term health of the planet.
Recently, awareness that this gorgeous planet on which we live and on which we are dependent has spawned interest in green, natural or conservation burials, and human composting.
Often misunderstood to be one and the same, green—or “natural”—burials are closer to Indigenous and ancient burial practices in which bodies are returned to the earth or burned in funeral pyres with no toxic chemicals introduced into the soil or air, and using biodegradable containers. Conservation burials go a step further, with the model calling for cemeteries to operate under the stewardship of conservation organizations, such as land trusts, and comply with protocols that ensure no harm is done to the surrounding plant and wildlife ecosystems.
Human composting steps up to the highest level of “green” and involves a process that accelerates and abbreviates the up to 20 years required for a buried human body to decompose naturally. Through applied biological science, the conversion of human remains into soil, known as human composting or more technically as natural organic reduction (NOR), upends the conventional funeral industry’s environmentally destructive methods.
Bioneers, a nonprofit organization founded in 1990 in New Mexico by social entrepreneurs Kenny Ausubel and Nina Simons, maintains an active presence and leadership team in the Bay Area. The organization serves as a hub, offering workshops, community conversations, a full complement of social media productions that include radio, podcast and book series, a national conference and, through the local Bioneers Network, third-party media projects such as Leonardo DiCaprio’s movie, The 11th Hour, and Michael Pollan’s best-selling book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma.
This year’s Annual Bioneers Conference in April featured a robust roster of experts, keynote speakers and artists joined by thousands of civically active people on the UC Berkeley Campus and in venues across downtown Berkeley. Recognizing the commonality to all people of the death experience and with avid interest in “good deaths” along with preserving the planet’s longevity for future generations, the conference, Revolution from the Heart of Nature, included leaders in the areas of human composting, green burials and honoring the Earth as a final act.
Bioneers frequently gathers experts and composes panels who discuss specific, highly relevant-to-the-moment topics. The curated conversations hone general programs according to community interest and address anything from restorative food systems to youth leadership in the environmental movement to health care. Increased public awareness resulting from the programs sparks further discussions and activism, sometimes leading to solutions for eradicating obstacles to greater justice and equity, especially in marginalized communities.
“Contemporary culture has a hard time with death and dying,” says Bioneers President Teo Grossman. “This is true spiritually as well as practically, and it’s a conversation many would simply rather not have. As we know, there is literally no way around it. As we reckon with the impact humanity is having on the planet, exploring innovative approaches to death and dying should naturally be part of that conversation.”
Bioneers’ mission is to offer a public platform for people working on revolutionary solution-seeking projects who perhaps don’t have the bandwidth to do their own outreach to the press, Grossman says. While not claiming to be an expert, he says, “Our relationship with the natural world as humans, and our resulting actions, are clearly of significant importance. Innovative projects and ideas regarding practices around death and dying support extending that conversation to ‘new’ areas. I say ‘new’ in quotes because, as I’m sure the experts in this field have mentioned, the idea of integrating death and dying with nature and natural systems is probably as old as the idea of human rituals—and it’s only relatively recently that it has been dis-integrated.”
In light of Grossman’s earnest step back to remove himself from the limelight, it’s best to turn to one of the experts from the annual event to learn more about the green death movement and the level of interest in the Bay Area.
Katrina Spade, the founder and CEO of Recompose, a licensed, green funeral home based in Seattle, says there is strong interest in innovative death care and human composting specifically.
“This is not just people wanting to return to the Earth,” Spade said. “I love natural [green] burial, but if that’s all people wanted, it would be rising faster in popularity. Human composting lets you approach the whole thing in a way that feels new, even though nature is doing the work. The Recompose process is science coupled with an approach to death care that’s fresh, acknowledges death occurs and remembers that all of us have a capacity to be a part of the experience in a deeper way than might have been allowed by the conventional funeral industry.”
Recompose began accepting bodies for human composting in December 2020. In a nutshell, the process involves placing the body in an eight-foot-long steel cylinder filled with wood chips, alfalfa and straw. The mixture is calibrated for each individual and once the vessel is closed, the body’s transformation begins. During the next 30 days, the Recompose staff monitor the moisture, heat and pH levels inside the vessels, occasionally rotating them, until the body is transformed into soil. The soil is then transferred to curing bins, where it remains for two weeks before being tested for toxins and cleared for pickup. Eight-to-12 weeks after the process begins, the human soil can be used to enrich a garden, donated to a conservation organization to be used on privatized land or spread over multiple locations.
A composted body produces approximately one cubic yard of soil, an amount that fills a pickup truck bed and weighs upwards of 1,500 pounds. Importantly, and a reason many people are gravitating to NOR, is that the practice avoids conventional burial or cremation, which collectively adds one metric ton of carbon dioxide, per body, to the atmosphere. Additionally, the Recompose process does not use up valuable land or pollute the soil, and reduces contributions to climate change related to the production and transport of headstones, caskets, grave liners, urns and other items. It’s estimated the carbon output from a year’s worth of cremations in the United States is equivalent to burning 400 million pounds of coal.
“Some people say, ‘Composting humans has happened forever,’” Spade says. “But actually composting is a process that is by definition human-managed natural decomposition that is accelerated. Composting in any industry is something people are doing, not de-composting happening out in the wild. I think that’s a helpful distinction. Natural burial is just about a perfect solution for our dead, but because it takes land, it’s mostly a rural solution.”
She adds, “With composting, it’s possible to serve many more people in cities, because it doesn’t require the land of conventional burial or the time of natural burial that happens in the ground. Depending on soil quality and the climate, it takes years to decompose or desiccate a human body. With NOR, we’re transforming the human body inside of a highly managed vessel system—adding oxygen via a basic air pump and the exact recipe of plant materials that balance carbon and nitrogen so that the body will break down in a relatively short amount of time. We’re also monitoring for temperature because we want to make sure the material is safe for use on plants.”
The most common question Spade is asked about the process involves the bones. The mulch-like material at the end of the first 30 days still has bones, along with any non-organic matter, such as a titanium hip. The bones are reduced, basically pulverized as they are in a cremation, and turned into a sand-like substance. Inorganic materials are recycled, if possible. Once all the microbial activity is complete and the soil dries out, she says the remains scientifically, biologically and by look and feel, resemble compost a person might buy at a nursery.
Lynette Pang is a Bay Area resident, passionate gardener and an early investor in Recompose. After more than 20 years working in the investment management industry, she decided the second half of her life would involve something revolutionary. She began reading books on death, dying and grief, including From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death, by Caitlin Doughty.
“The book is a treasure,” Pang says. “But one chapter stood out: it was about something called the Urban Death Project. Wanting to learn more, I turned to the internet and learned about Recompose, formerly called the Urban Death Project. The concept of human composting was right up my alley. It just makes sense. I truly believe the practice of human composting will change, and maybe even save, the world. It is an investment in hope.”
Pang says she plans to participate in Recompose and hopes taboos surrounding death will diminish and that people will speak freely about how they want to die. “We are born, we live and then we die,” she says. “To me, it’s just that. When it is time to make my exit, whether that is tomorrow or many, many years from now, I shall be gifted to the earth as glorious, black gold.”
To do so, at least until 2027, Pang and other Californians will have to travel to Seattle.
“California is a great example of what’s holding NOR back,” Spade says. “The regulatory law passed in 2022 authorized NOR, but then there was a four-year regulatory period tacked on. How could it take four years to write regulations around NOR? Washington [state] was first to legalize the process, and we have two agencies that wrote regulations that are straightforward and make everything safe. Washington passed the bill in May 2019 and it went into effect May 2020. We did it first and had to do it from scratch, but other states could look to Washington [to write their regulations].”
She points out it takes a fair amount of capital to get a facility up and running, and adds that “any type of funeral care isn’t something you can snap your fingers and have up and running instantly.” In the meantime, Spade dreams and plans to open and direct facilities similar to Recompose’s Seattle home base in the top 12 urban centers in the United States. Conversations to franchise the brand and system to funeral homes and cemeteries have begun as the leadership team structures licensing agreements.
Spade recounts a favorite client story. “It’s about a person named Wayne who died and his sister brought his remains home to where he gardened his whole life. His neighbors and friends came with five-gallon buckets and took some of him home to their own gardens.” Spade says half of the families bring a truck or trailer, pick up the soil and take it home; the other 50% choose to donate it, through Recompose, to conservation efforts. “We have land partners that are conservation trusts owned by nonprofits,” she says. “Clients can donate soil to that trust so it is used in the forest to nourish the land. Families can go visit those places.”
A more universal story is the number of people who learn about human composting and green burials and say, “I want that.”
“As I began to grow Recompose, it became clear again and again that there was a lot of interest out there for options in funeral care that are sustainable and aligned with the planet,” Spade says. “Having your last gesture be a good one on the Earth, they say, is important.”
Family members or close friends may choose to be involved in washing and dressing the body after death has occurred. Caring for a body is not easy and can stir up strong emotions. See Moments After a Death. Many people turn to health care providers and funeral directors for help. They find comfort and assurance in entrusting the body to those who provide professional services. The deceased may have left instructions for their after-death care to be handled by the health care team and chosen funeral home. Other people practice religions or belong to communities that view care of the body as a family responsibility. Their faith community, elders or neighbours provide guidance and support for hands-on care of the body. For some, this is a way of honouring the person – a final act of kindness to him or her.
This article outlines the steps involved in the care of the body after death.
In advance of the death
Talk to the health care team in advance about family or friend involvement in after-death care. You may also want to talk to the health care team about the supplies and assistance that will be required. Washing, dressing and positioning the body
Washing and dressing the body is an act of intimacy and sign of respect. Those who were most involved in the person’s physical care may feel the most comfortable in doing this. Continued respect for the person’s modesty is essential.
Regardless of whether the person died at home or in hospital, hospice or nursing home, washing and positioning the body is best done where death occurs before stiffening of the body (rigor mortis) sets in. Rigor mortis happens within two to seven hours after death. Regardless of the location of care, you may need four to six people to help in gently moving and turning the body.
At home, you can wash the body in a regular bed. However, a hospital bed or narrow table will make the task easier. Since the body may release fluids or waste after death, place absorbent pads or towels under it. It is important to take precautions to protect yourself from contact with the person’s blood and body fluids. While you are moving, repositioning and washing the body, wear disposable gloves and wash your hands thoroughly after care.
Washing the person’s body after death is much like giving the person a bath during his or her illness.
1. Wash the person’s face, gently closing the eyes before beginning, using the soft pad of your fingertip. If you close them and hold them closed for a few minutes following death, they may stay closed on their own. If they do not, close again and place a soft smooth cloth over them. Then place a small soft weight to keep the eyes in position. To make a weight, fill a small plastic bag with dry uncooked rice, lentils, small beans or seeds.
After you have washed the face, close the mouth before the body starts to stiffen. If the mouth will not stay shut, place a rolled-up towel or washcloth under the chin. If this does not provide enough support to keep the mouth closed, use a light-weight, smooth fabric scarf. Place the middle of the scarf at the top of the head, wrapping each end around the side of the face, under the chin and up to the top of the head where it can be gently tied. These supports will become unnecessary in a few hours and can be removed.
2. Wash the hair unless it has been washed recently. For a man, you might shave his face if that would be his normal practice. You can find step-by-step instructions in the video Personal Hygiene – Caring for hair.
3. Clean the teeth and mouth. Do not remove dentures because you may have difficulty replacing them as the body stiffens.
4. Clean the body using a facecloth with water and a small amount of soap. Begin with the arms and legs and then move to the front and back of the trunk. You may need someone to help you roll the person to each side to wash the back. If you wish, you can add fragrant oil or flower petals to your rinse water. Dry the part of the body you are working on before moving to another. Some families or cultures may also choose to apply a special lotion, oil or fragrance to the person’s skin.
5. Dress or cover the body according to personal wishes or cultural practices. A shirt or a dress can be cut up the middle of the back from the bottom to just below but not through the neckline or collar. Place the arms into the sleeves first and then slipping the neck opening over the head, tucking the sides under the body on each side.
6. Position the arms alongside his or her body and be sure the legs are straight. If the person is in a hospital bed with the head raised, lower the head of the bed to the flat position.
If a funeral home is assisting with the funeral, cremation or burial, call to arrange for transport of the body to their facility. If the death has occurred in a hospital, hospice or long-term care facility, the staff will arrange for the body to be picked up by the funeral home of your choice. In hospital, once the family agrees, the body is moved to the morgue and kept there until transported to the funeral home.
If your family is planning a home funeral or burial, cover the body in light clothing so it will stay as cool as possible. A fan, air conditioning, dry ice or an open window in the room where you place the body will help to preserve it.
Losing a spouse or other family member or someone we are close to is never easy. Not only is the emotional aspect weighty, but there are responsibilities that come along with managing the decedent’s affairs. Organization and follow through are key elements when filing tax returns for the deceased. Together, they can help the process go smoothly.
Important to know
For those with taxable income prior to death, a final tax return must be filed. This is typically done by the spouse with whom they’ve previously filed jointly, or by a legally appointed representative of the deceased. In the case of a surviving spouse, they may continue to file jointly for two additional years if there are dependents and they have not remarried.
What the IRS requires
In most cases, the person responsible for filing the return, such as a surviving spouse, is likely named on the will. Whoever is filing the final return must report all income and financial information up to the time of the deceased person’s earthly departure. If there is no spouse, many times a child, trustee, close family member, or business partner is appointed as representative. Click here to learn more about filing tax returns for a deceased parent.
Is official notification of death required by the IRS?
Typically, the IRS generally does not require formal notification of death to accompany the return. However, on the final return, it must be clearly noted DECEASED, indicating that said person has died. The date of death must also be noted. Electronic returns will automatically state this information when properly programmed. In some rare instances, a formal death certificate may be required.
Decisions must be made
A major decision one faces is whether to prepare the final return oneself or use a tax professional. The tax filer is ultimately responsible for the accuracy of the tax return; thus, it is imperative that the final return is properly prepared. For complicated tax situations, or in the case where one is unfamiliar with taxes and/or does not feel comfortable preparing the return, the guidance of a tax professional is wise.
Why hire a CPA?
A Certified Public Accountant, or CPA, is an expert who is licensed to provide accounting services to the public. They are knowledgeable in tax preparation, internal auditing, and perform other valuable tax and financial services. Note that a CPA is an accountant, but not all accountants are CPAs. CPA is a special professional designation earned by qualified accountants. They must adhere to rules of ethics.
What type of information is needed to prepare a return?
Regardless of whether a tax return is done by an executor or by a professional accountant, the tax filer must gather information regarding the decedent’s tax situation to prepare a final return. The following information is generally useful:
A death certificate. Some financial institutions may require a copy before releasing information. CPAs may request a copy of the death certificate to confirm that someone is indeed deceased. In some rare instances, it may also be needed for the final return.
Proof as court appointed representative of the estate or deceased. This clarifies who is responsible for filing a tax return on behalf of the deceased.
Copies of previous tax returns. If the representative of the deceased does not have copies of the most recent tax returns, there are ways to obtain them. One may file a power of attorney to enable their CPA to obtain copies of previous returns. Alternatively, one may submit Form 4506-T to the IRS to request a transcript of the previous tax return. One must likely demonstrate representative or executor status.
A tax organizer. This is a document given to clients by their tax preparer to help individuals collect, organize, and submit information needed to prepare an accurate return. This helps to ensure that vital information is not overlooked. It also helps to confirm that all tax deductions and credits are noted. Paperwork that is generally important to collect and provide to your CPA may include 1099s, mortgage information, bank statements, investment statements, and more.
A copy of the will. This may outline other important financial information that may be useful for tax return preparation.
An important job
Filing tax returns for the deceased is a task not to be taken lightly. When a taxpayer passes away, a final return is still expected. This responsibility generally falls onto the surviving spouse or appointed representative. If the responsible party fails to file taxes for a deceased person, the IRS may take legal action, for example, by placing a federal lien against the Estate.
Many Americans report that their relationships with loved ones continue past death in some way, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.
Around half of U.S. adults (53%) say they’ve ever been visited by a dead family member in a dream or some other form. And substantial shares say they’ve had interactions with dead relatives in the past 12 months:
34% have “felt the presence” of a dead relative
28% have told a dead relative about their life
15% have had a dead family member communicate with them
In total, 44% of Americans report having at least one of these three experiences in the past year.
Women are more likely than men to say they have had these kinds of interactions with dead family members. And people who are moderately religious are more likely than others – including those who are highly religious and those who are not religious – to have experienced these things.
The survey was conducted March 27-April 2, 2023, among 5,079 adults on the Center’s American Trends Panel. It included Americans of all religious backgrounds, including Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus. But there are not enough respondents from these smaller groups to report on their answers separately.
While the survey asked whether people have had interactions with dead relatives, it did not ask for explanations. We don’t know whether people view these experiences as mysterious or supernatural, or whether they see them as having natural or scientific causes, or some of both.
For example, the survey did not ask what respondents meant when they said they had been visited in a dream by a dead relative. Some might have meant that relatives were trying to send them messages or information from beyond the grave. Others might have had something more commonplace in mind, such as having dreamt about a favorite memory of a family member.
Experiences with being visited by a dead relative
Overall, 46% of Americans report that they’ve been visited by a dead family member in a dream, while 31% report having been visited by dead relatives in some other form.
Roughly two-thirds of Catholics (66%) and members of the historically Black Protestant tradition (67%) have ever experienced a visit from a deceased family member in some form. Evangelical Protestants are far less likely to say the same (42%).
Roughly half (48%) of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated – atheists, agnostics, and those who report their religion is “nothing in particular” – say they have ever been visited by a dead relative in a dream or other form. However, those who describe their religion as nothing in particular are much more likely to say they have ever been visited by a deceased loved one (58%) than are agnostics (34%) and atheists (26%).
Recent contact with deceased relatives
When asked about recent experiences – things that have happened in the last 12 months – 34% of Americans say they have felt the presence of a dead family member and 28% say they have told dead family members about events in their life. Fewer respondents (15%) say a deceased family member has communicated with them in the past year.
Women are more likely than men to say they had at least one of these three experiences in the last year (53% vs. 35%). For example, women are more likely than men to say they recently have felt the presence of a dead family member (41% vs. 27%).
When it comes to religion, about half or more of Catholics (58%), members of the historically Black Protestant tradition (56%) and mainline Protestants (52%) say they have had at least one of these three experiences in the last year – significantly more than the 35% of evangelical Protestants who say the same.
Relatively few atheist (15%) or agnostic (25%) adults report any of these experiences over the last 12 months. In contrast, roughly half (48%) of those who say their religion is nothing in particular reported one of these experiences.
These experiences also differ by Americans’ religious commitment, as measured by a scale that includes indicators of religious service attendance, prayer frequency and self-assessments of religion’s importance in one’s life.
Americans with medium levels of religious commitment are more likely than those with either higher or lower levels of religious commitment to say they’ve felt the presence of a family member who is dead, told a dead family member about events in their life, and felt a dead relative communicate with them in the past year.
Summing up this pattern in another way: People who are moderately religious seem to be more likely than other Americans to have these experiences. This is partly because some of the most traditionally religious groups – such as evangelical Protestants – as well as some of the least religious parts of the population – such as atheists and agnostics – are less likely to report having interactions with deceased family members.
— Our funeral practices have a high carbon footprint. Becca Warner explores how she could plan her own more environmentally-friendly burial.
By Becca Warner
Not many of us like talking about death. It’s dark, and sad, and prone to throwing us into an existential spiral. But the uncomfortable truth is that, as someone who cares about the environment, I realised I needed to stop ignoring the reality of it. Once we’re gone, our bodies need somewhere to go – and the ways that we typically burn or bury bodies in the West come at a scary environmental cost.
Most people in the UK (where I’m from) are cremated when they die, and burning bodies isn’t good for the planet. The stats make wince-worthy reading. A typical cremation in the UK is gas-powered, and is estimated to produce 126kg (278lb) CO2 equivalent emissions (CO2e) – about the same as driving from Brighton to Edinburgh. In the US, the average is even higher, at 208kg (459lb) CO2e. It’s perhaps not the most carbon-intensive thing we’ll do in our lives – but when the majority of people in many countries opt to go up in smoke when they die, those emissions quickly add up.
What is CO2e?
CO2 equivalent, or CO2e, is the metric used to quantify the emissions from various greenhouse gases on the basis of their capacity to warm the atmosphere – their global warming potential.
Burying a body isn’t much better. In some countries, the grave is lined with concrete, a carbon intensive material, and the body housed in a resource-heavy wood or steel coffin. Highly toxic embalming fluid, such as formaldehyde, is often used, which leaches into the soil alongside heavy metals that harm ecosystems and pollute the water table. And the coffin alone can be responsible for as much as 46kg (101lb) CO2e, depending on the combination of materials used.
I spend my days attempting to tread lightly on the planet – recycling cereal boxes, taking the bus, choosing tofu over steak. The idea that my death will necessitate one final, poisonous act is hard to stomach. I am resolved to find a more sustainable option. (Listen to the Climate Question’s episode exploring whether we can have a climate-friendly death).
In traditional burials, graves are lined with concrete, a carbon-intensive material, and bodies are embalmed in toxic fluids which can leach into the soil
My first port of call is the Natural Death Centre, a charity based in the UK. I pick up the phone and am pleased to find Rosie Inman-Cook on the other end of the line – a chatty, no-nonsense type who is quick to warn me about the dubiousness of many alternative deathcare practices. “There are always companies jumping on the bandwagon, seeing a cash cow, inventing stuff. There’s a lot of coffin producers and funeral packages that will sell you a ‘green thing’ and plant a tree. You have to be careful.”
Her warning brings to mind some “eco urns” I’ve read about. Some are biodegradable, so that buried ashes can be mixed with soil and grow into a tree; others combine ashes with cement so they can form part of an artificial coral reef. These options offer a kind of eco-novelty: what’s a more fitting end for an ocean lover than to rest among the reefs or for a forest fanatic to “transform” into a tree after their death? The only problem is that however sustainable the urn, the ashes deposited in it are the product of carbon-intensive cremation.
So can I avoid my body becoming a billowing cloud of black smoke in the first place?
Inman-Cook’s remit is natural burials. This involves burying a body without any barriers to decomposition – no embalming fluids, no plastic liners or metal caskets. All of this means zero CO2 emissions, according to a recent analysis conducted by UK sustainability certification company Planet Mark. The body is buried in a relatively shallow grave, which might be someone’s garden, or, more often, a natural burial site.
Some natural burial sites allow graves to be marked with stones or other simple markers; others are stricter and don’t allow any markings at all. These are woodlands or other wildlife-rich places, often managed in a way that actively supports conservation. “It’s [about] creating green spaces for wildlife, nice places for people to visit, planting new woodland at the same time – and it’s a positive legacy,” Inman-Cook says.
But what of the not-so-natural materials that make their way into the human body – pharmaceuticals, microplastics, heavy metals? They surely don’t belong in the ground. One solution might come in the form of a coffin made of fungi. The Loop Living Cocoon claims to be the world’s first living coffin. It is made of a native, non-invasive species of mushroom mycelium, which is also used to create insulation panels, packaging and furniture. I speak to its inventor, Bob Hendrikx.
“The best thing that we can do is die in the forest and just lay there,” he says. “But one of the problems we’re facing is soil degradation – the quality of the soil is getting poorer and poorer, especially in funeral sites, because there’s a lot of pollution there. The human body is [also] getting more polluting.” Microplastics, for example, have now been found in human blood.
Natural burials are growing in popularity. It involves burying a body without any barriers to decomposition – no embalming fluids, plastic liners or metal caskets
Mycelium has the power to increase soil health and absorb heavy metals that would otherwise leach into groundwater. Some fungi species have been found to break down microplastics, and future research could uncover ways to harness this for human burials.
But based on current research, the real impact of today’s mushroom coffins is difficult to know. I ask Rima Trofimovaite, author of Planet Mark’s report, what the likely benefits of a mushroom coffin are. She says that there is limited data on whether human bodies pollute the ground following a natural burial in a shallow grave. But she says that it is likely that most pollutants are “sorted out at the right level with the right organisms” when only a few feet underground, no extra fungi needed. “I think an option like this is still important,” she says. “We know that natural burial is the least emitting, but not everyone likes being wrapped up in a cotton shroud. People might prefer a mushroom coffin because it has a shape.”
However ecologically sound a natural burial – with or without fungi – might be, land remains precious. In cities in particular, green space for natural woodland burials is at a premium. It was this that prompted young architecture student Katrina Spade to investigate what could be done to make burials in cities less wasteful. Her solution is a logical one: to compost the body in a hexagonal steel vessel, reducing it to a nutrient-dense soil that the family can lay onto their garden.
Sustainabilty on a Shoestring
We currently live in an unsustainable world. While the biggest gains in the fight to curb climate change will come from the decisions made by governments and industries, we can all play our part. In Sustainability on a Shoestring, BBC Future explores how each of us can contribute as individuals to reducing carbon emissions by living more sustainably, without breaking the bank.
Spade launched Recompose, the world’s first human composting facility, in Seattle in 2020. Washington was the first US state legalise human composting the same year, and the practice is now legal in seven US states. Other human composting facilities have sprung up in Colorado and Washington.
Recompose has so far composted around 300 bodies. The process happens over the course of five to seven weeks. Lying in its specialised vessel, the body is surrounded by wood chips, alfalfa and straw. The air is carefully monitored and controlled, to make it a comfortable home for the microbes that help speed up the body’s decomposition. The remains are eventually removed, having transformed into two wheelbarrows-worth of compost. The bones and teeth – which don’t decompose – are removed, broken down mechanically, and added to the compost. Any implants, pacemakers or artificial joints are recycled whenever possible, says Spade.
With no need for energy-intense burning, human composting has a far smaller carbon footprint than cremation. In a lifecycle assessment conducted by Leiden University and Delft University of Technology, using data provided by Recompose, the climate impact of composting a body was found to be a fraction of that of cremation: 28kg (62lb) of CO2e compared to 208kg (459lb) CO2e in the US. When I ask Spade about the production of methane – a particularly harmful greenhouse gas that is released when organic matter rots – she explains that the vessels are aerated to ensure there’s plenty of oxygen. This prevents the anaerobic process that causes rotting, she says.
Turning a human body into soil also reminds us that “we’re not adjacent to nature, we’re part of nature,” Spade says. This shift in our relationship to the natural world is an environmental benefit that’s hard to quantify but is “critical to the plight of the planet”, she says.
Turning a human body into soil reminds us that “we’re not adjacent to nature, we’re part of nature,” says Katrina Spade, founder of Recompose
Can anyone be composted? I ask Spade this question as I want to know if I’d “qualify” to meet the same end as a banana peel. The answer is, broadly, yes – but not if I’ve died of Ebola, a prion disease (a rare type of transmissible brain disease), or tuberculosis, as these pathogens have not been shown to be broken down by composting, says Spade.
As she describes the process, it strikes me that clothes would presumably not be welcome in the composting vessel. Instead, the remains are shrouded in linen, and families who choose to hold a ceremony can cover them with organic wood chips, straw, flowers, even shredded love letters.
“In one case, a family brought red bell peppers and purple onions that had just ripened in their loved one’s garden – it was so beautiful,” Spade recalls. The body enters a “threshold vessel”, where the Recompose team takes over. They remove the linen shroud but not the flowers and vegetables. I quietly hope that my family would really go for it here. I picture baskets of pine cones, mounds of mushrooms, maybe some of my beloved house plants.
This is all feeling very earthy – but there is another low-carbon option that centres around a different element: water. “Water cremation” (also known as “aquamation”, “alkaline hydrolysis” or “resomation”) is an alternative to traditional cremation, and was the method of choice for Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who helped end apartheid in South Africa. It is another altogether gentler and cleaner affair than cremation, producing just 20kg (44lb) CO2e. “That’s a big difference,” Trofimovaite says. “You slash massive amounts of emissions with resomation compared to flame cremation.”
Approximately 1,500 litres (330 gallons) of water is mixed with potassium hydroxide, and heated to 150C (302°F). In just four hours, the human body is reduced to sterile liquid. More than 20,000 people have been water cremated over the last 12 years, mostly in the US. The UK’s largest funeral provider, Co-op Funeralcare, recently announced that it will introduce the practice later this year.
The speed of water cremation makes it a great budget option. The Co-op anticipate the cost to be comparable to flame cremation – around £1,200 ($1,500) with basic support but no funeral service. Natural burials can be a similar price, but costs are often much higher, depending on the individual burial site. Composting is a lot more pricey at $7,000 (£5,500) – slightly more than the average standard UK burial, which costs £4,794 ($6,107).
I speak to Sandy Sullivan, founder of Resomation – a company that sells water cremation equipment to funeral homes across North America, Ireland and the UK (and plans to in the Netherlands, New Zealand and Australia in the next year). He is patient when I say I’m picturing the process as a kind of melting, and that I’m not sure how I feel about that.
“This is what you end up with,” he says, holding up a large, clear bag filled with a bright white powder. “This is flour, by the way,” he adds quickly. The point is that the final product is dry, ash-like. The flour is a likeness of what is returned to the family, and it comprises only the bones, which have been mechanically crushed (as they are following flame cremation). The soft tissue of the body is broken down in the water and disappears down the pipes to the water treatment plant.
Flame cremations are among the most carbon-intensive funeral rites
Sullivan’s bag of flour represents the physical takeaway that is so important to many families. It demonstrates what Julie Rugg, director of the University of York’s Cemetery Research Group in the UK, says is central to so much of our thinking about funeral practices.
“In the face of death, we seek consolation. And it’s been really interesting seeing how there’s been a conflict, in some cases, between what is sustainable and what people find consoling,” she says. Bags of bone ash and compost go some way towards overcoming this by offering us something tangible, an anchor for our grief.
As I consider the various options I’ve learned about – melting, mulching, mycellium – I find my thoughts returning to my first conversation with Inman-Cook. I am taken with the simplicity of natural burial, the absence of any bell, whistle, vessel or chamber. I’m pleased to learn that, based on all she has learned during her scientific analysis, Trofimovaite has reached the same conclusion. “I would try to do it as natural as possible,” she tells me. “Natural burials are the most appealing.” But an unmarked natural burial is a perfect example of the conflict Rugg has identified.
Carbon Count
“Somebody says they love the idea of being buried in this beautiful meadow, but they can’t put anything down on the grave,” she says. Rugg describes “guerilla gardening” taking place at one natural burial site, by a family member intent on surreptitiously marking their loved one’s grave with distinctive clovers. “What we’ve got to arrive at is a system which allows us to feel that our loss is special. We’ve got to think about sustainability at scale that still offers consolation.”
The answer, it seems to me, could lie in reimagining what “special” can mean. As Rugg says, in a typical memorial garden “you can’t move for plaques everywhere. We resist the dead disappearing, and actually we find that less consoling than we might think.”
I come away from the conversation with a clear sense that, assuming I’ve avoided going up in a puff of smoke, one of the most helpful things I can do is to refuse to lay claim to any single patch of land at all. I hope my family could find consolation in the knowledge that I’d be happier becoming one with a whole landscape. Why be a tree when I can become a forest?
