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Metro Atlanta gets Southeast's first human composting provider

Thomas Wheatley

Indoor funeral home display area with a long light wood chrysalis vessel on a wheeled base to the right, metal latches and a crest reading "Est. 1903." Background shows a mountain forest mural and bright overhead lights. — The specialized human composting vessel on display at A.S. Turner & Sons funeral home in Decatur. Courtesy: The Natural Funeral

Starting next month, people who want to enter the afterlife in soil form have an option in metro Atlanta.

Driving the news: A.S. Turner & Sons is expected to become the first licensed operator in the Southeast of a more environmentally-friendly offering from the death-care industry: human composting.

Zoom in: Human composting entails the body being placed and sealed in a specialized vessel filled with a mix of organic material like straw, alfalfa and wood chips.

Over the course of roughly one month, the body and mixture decompose and become soil, which loved ones can bring home.

Catch up quick: Human composting became legal in Georgia last year when Gov. Brian Kemp signed Senate Bill 241 into law.

What's next: Cy Hume, the president and CEO of A.S. Turner & Sons, told Axios that the funeral home is discussing a partnership with a local cemetery so people could return their loved ones' soil back to the earth.

The big picture: Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Dirt to dirt?

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Metro Atlanta gets Southeast's first human composting provider

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