Most kids know that leaves decompose. Don't give him an out like that, he had every opportunity over his 70+ years to improve as a human and has failed at every turn. If you dehydrated his body and ground him to dust, then reduced that dust to its component elements, you'd probably have to sell them at a discount after disclosing their origin. He is, in my opinion, worth less than the sum of his parts.

This is TRUE. I am an ecologist. We need to remove trees, actively do prescribed burns, to prevent catastrophic fires. I know you hate Trump (I do too), but this is absolutely correct. It's called fuel load.