Human Composting Legalized in Washington

Washington became the first state in the United States to legalize human composting after its eco-friendly governor signed a bill in a bid to cut carbon emissions from the burials and cremations.

According to the new law that will come into effect from May next year, people who die in the state will now have the option to have their bodies transformed into the soil through a process called recomposition and is suitable for use in gardening.

Katrina Spade, founder of Recompose, company which is soon going to be the first to offer the service said, “Recomposition offers an alternative to embalming and burial or cremation that is natural, safe, sustainable, and will result in significant savings in carbon emissions and land usage”.

Spade also added, “The idea of returning to nature so directly and being folded back into the cycle of life and death is actually pretty beautiful”. She became interested in the process about 10 years ago at the age of 30 years when started to think more about her own mortality.

Katrina Spade started exploring the technical aspects of creating an environmentally friendly option that could also compete with the $20-billion US funeral industry, which offers conventional burial as well as cremation.

The approach, which Spade developed with Washington State University, did several clinical trials with the donor bodies before being legalized.

In the recomposition process, a dead person is placed in a hexagonal steel container filled with wood chips, alfalfa and straw. The container then is shut and microbes decompose the body within 30 days. The end product is a dry, fluffy nutrient-rich soil, which resembles what one would, buys at a local nursery and which is suitable for vegetable gardens.

The process followed is the same as it has been used for decades with farm animals and the clinical trials carried out by the university in Washington also found that it is safe for use with humans.

Dr Lynne Carpenter-Boggs, a professor of soil science at Washington State University says, “We have found that the essential methods that we use for livestock mortality composting are also effective for human disposition. We have substantially changed the materials used, to be socially acceptable, but the basic principles that we have learned from livestock mortality composting are very effective for the human research subjects that we used”.

Spade expects her company to charge around $5,500 for each natural organic reduction. The innovation also comes at a time when so-called green or earth-friendly burials are gaining traction in the United States, and companies are now offering organic caskets in which the body is wrapped in a simple shroud.

Actor Luke Perry, star of the hit series “Beverly Hills 90210” who died in March this year was buried in a biodegradable suit made partly out of mushrooms, as wished by him. Coeio developed the so-called ‘mushroom suit’. Coeio is a California based startup, that said the attire helps the body to decompose, neutralizes the toxins found in the body thereby transferring the nutrients to plant life.