Earth Funeral wants new laws in North Carolina. The laws would let them build a $10 million site for human composting. Charlotte sits at the top of their location list. This San Francisco and New York company runs sites in Washington, Nevada, and Maryland.

The company transforms bodies into soil rich with nutrients. The transformation takes 30 to 45 days. Workers put a body in a vessel shaped like a tube. They add organic mulch, wood chips, and wildflowers. Microbes that occur in nature break the body down to molecules.

Co-founder Tom Harries spoke with The Charlotte Observer. He said the company will push for new laws next year. Right now, the business helps North Carolina residents by moving remains to states where composting is allowed.

“It used to be that you’d have a family plot, and you would bury grandma in the backyard … and you’d scatter some wildflowers on top, and every season when the wildflowers would bloom, you’d say, ‘Oh, there’s grandma pushing up the daisies, right?'” Harries said. “And so there is this return to that … a return-to-the-earth concept in this process as well.”

The service costs $6,500. Full-service burials average around $9,500 across the nation. Cremations cost about what human composting does.

In North Carolina, 57% of people pick cremation over burial. Cost drives most of this. Cities have limited cemetery space. Families get the compost when the work is done. Any material they don’t keep goes to land conservation and reforestation projects.

Religious groups oppose the method. Some lawmakers do too. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has fought bills that allow human composting. They say the process doesn’t meet the church’s standard for proper respect toward bodies of the deceased.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt vetoed a bill in May. The bill would have made human composting legal, KOSU reported. “Reducing human remains into soil for reuse crosses a line that many Oklahomans believe should be approached with far greater caution,” Stitt stated in his veto message.

More than a dozen states have made human composting legal. California passed a law in 2022, but it won’t take effect until 2027, KQED reported.

Raleigh resident Janet Batiansila used the service for her husband, Walter. He died in July 2025. “It’s much more of a peaceful process. There’s no burning,” Batiansila said. “I just can’t imagine the appeal of cremation if people knew there was another option that is just more comforting.”