Jim Bunny Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

When the wailing had subsided, when all the godawful OMG's were spent, when all the disgust and disdain was done, I dropped clause six of my last will and testament on them.

I told them what I wanted done with my carcass when I shuffle off and have no further use for earthly things... like a body. No I wasn't feeling poorly, no I hadn't been given a bad diagnosis. In fact I was relatively chipper and very much in this life and now, and in charge.

Stay with me please! It gets interesting.

As in life, when you like to have things sorted, well, so too in death. I have done my three score and ten, and I am single… so who's going to pick up my bones when the time comes. It's my passing, I claim ownership, and I want it organised in advance and done my way.

Well, Howard Fischer's way actually.

Never met Howard, never will, but the New Yorker's my new soulmate.

It was seven minutes past New Year.

Everyone was making booze fueled resolutions which would be left drowning in the dregs of some empty beer or wine bottle, or ashtray, in the morning.

I have never done resolutions and rash promises. Until this New Year.

'When I die, I want to be composted,” I declared to the pissed assembled.

'I don't want to be buried, I don't want to be burned, I want to be composted into rich fertile soil and returned whence good things come.”

My last deed on this earth would be a noble one.

But it wasn't received like that – there was an outpouring of repulsion, nausea, and squeamishness.

It was also a conversation starter.

Megan took her face out of her fourth or seventh Margarita long enough to offer up this thought. 'If your dead body is left in a preserved state you run the risk of having your corpse being used in a zombie apocalypse or being raised up for some other type of whack witchcraft.”

She has obviously been up all night watching ‘Braindead' on rote.

'HOWEVER!” continued the young ghoul, 'if you get marinated down in the good soil that mother nature gave us then there will be nothing left of you and you can fully rest in peace knowing your carcass isn't being used for purposes of evil!

'YAY.” Megan likes upper case.

‘Marinated down' – Megan's words but Howard's way. Howard promotes human composting as an eco-friendly way to return your remains to the earth. Howard wants his body placed in a re-usable vessel along with woods chips, alfalfa and straw. The organic mix creates the perfect habitat for naturally occurring microbes to work quickly and efficiently, breaking down the body in just four weeks or so.

Sounds perfect – book me in.

Then I could become a cubic metre of nutrient dense soil amendment, the equivalent of 36 bags of soil that can be used to plant trees or enrich conservation land, forests or gardens. Then you could gaze on the beautiful hydrangeas and marvel at how well they have come on since you worked a bag of Jim Bunny bits and bobs into the root ball.

I have only embraced composting since I heard that Pele, footballer of some renown, chose a 200 square metre mausoleum on the ninth floor of a 14 storey vertical cemetery for his gilt embossed casket. Ghastly!

The 16,000 grave site even has a restaurant. So you can park grandad and go have a pie and a cup of tea. Lovely!

I want to minimise my footprint – no toxic, inflammable embalming fluids, no plundering the mahogany, walnut or cherry wood groves, no burning two hours' worth of fossil fuels to reduce me to ashes thank you.

But not everyone agrees.

'Inappropriate,” said some US catholic bishops. Apparently human bodies aren't household waste and composting 'doesn't meet the standard of reverent treatment of our earthly remains”. Pffft!

The average New Zealand lifespan is about 82 years, which gives me about 10 years to get my ‘Natural Organic Reduction' on track.

That's what they call it – Natural Organic Reduction. Doesn't that sound nicer than burial, interment or cremation?

‘NOR' is also in tune with my new philosophy on life – to live, and then die, in an environmentally friendly way.

I had an epiphany when the Tauranga City Council gave me all those flash recycling bins. I wonder if the council will phase in kerbside biodegradable containers for corpses. There's a guaranteed market.