NSW Legalizes Human Composting; Catholics Await Guidance
Regulations won’t take effect for about two years; Catholic cemeteries say they won’t offer terramation now as scholars say it violates the body’s dignity.
New South Wales has legalized human composting after the Public Health Amendment (Terramation) Bill passed Parliament on October 21 and received assent on Wednesday, October 28. Regulatory provisions tied to the practice are not expected to take effect for about two years.
Terramation, also called natural organic reduction, places a body in an above-ground vessel with straw, mulch, or sawdust so that decomposition yields a large volume of soil-like material. Families may use that material, including to plant a memorial tree.
Catholic cemeteries stand back
Catholic Cemeteries and Crematoria has no immediate plans to offer the service and has not yet decided whether it could accept remains produced elsewhere. Chief executive Lauren Hardgrove said the organization has received no inquiries about terramation, expects no immediate change to existing services, and will weigh regulatory requirements together with relevant Church guidance.
“As a Catholic organisation serving families of all faiths and beliefs, we will assess the implications as further details become available and seek appropriate Church guidance where relevant,” Hardgrove said. Effects on funeral costs and cemetery capacity remain uncertain.
Independent Sydney MP Alex Greenwich, who introduced the bill, presented it as another option amid pressure on funeral costs, burial space, and cremation emissions. In June he said: “We are running out of burial space and that space can cost as much as $50,000.” During debate, Liberal upper-house MP Susan Carter cautioned: “Terramation should not simply become a human compost bin.”
Dignity, Resurrection, and existing options
Clare Johnson, director of the Australian Catholic University’s Centre for Liturgy, said human composting is incompatible with the Catholic understanding of the dignity of the body and faith in the Resurrection. She noted that “anything that promotes care of the environment is a worthy initiative,” yet “we do have a very different perspective on the way that human remains are to be treated.”
Neither the Vatican nor the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference has issued specific guidance on terramation. The Holy See has affirmed that resurrection remains possible even when a body has been destroyed or dispersed. In 2023 the U.S. bishops’ doctrine committee concluded that human composting does not meet Catholic requirements for respect for the dead, calling it “disconcerting” that the body is decomposed with plant material “to yield a single mass of compost” with no distinguishable remains to lay to rest in a sacred place.
The Church permits cremation while preferring burial. Its 2016 instruction requires cremated remains to be interred in a sacred place and forbids scattering them—a distinction the U.S. committee drew because cremated remains can still be gathered and buried. Johnson pointed to natural burial and biodegradable coffins of willow, bamboo, or cardboard as environmentally sensitive paths already consistent with Catholic practice. Catholic Cemeteries and Crematoria already offers natural burial areas.
Until clear ecclesial guidance arrives, Catholic providers in New South Wales are holding the line: the body of the baptized is not raw material for compost, but a temple destined for resurrection.