This New Burial Technique Turns a Corpse Into a Tiny Pile of Freeze-Dried Fertilizer

Even the most environmentally friendly burials have drawbacks. Ground burial takes up precious real estate. Cremation endangers crematoria workers who can breathe in poisonous fumes. But a new burial method, called “promession,” solves the problems of both space and pollution. This technique, Wired reports, involves dipping a body into liquid nitrogen, vibrating it into thousands of tiny pieces and freeze-drying the resulting powder. Buried in the ground, in a few short months, the powder will turn into human fertilizer, helping flowers or trees to grow.

The Swedish company behind the idea, Promessa, has raised $3.2 million in funding over the past 12 years, Wired says:

All the tests have been completed thanks to a supply of dead pigs, which were placed in coffins, frozen, physically broken down, dried and buried in the earth with great success. Human testing is still illegal.

Still, Promessa has received queries from interested parties in around sixty countries and was voted the most promising innovation company in Sweden. If such interest continues, in the future, wills could include specifications for the type of flower or bush we’d like to fertilize rather than the make of coffin or urn.

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Rachel Nuwer | | READ MORE

Rachel Nuwer is a freelance science writer based in Brooklyn.