Eco-Friendly Burial: Washington Becomes First US State To Legalise Human Composting

Washington on Tuesday became the first US state to legalise
human composting after its eco-friendly governor signed a bill to
that effect in a bid to cut carbon emissions from burials and
cremations.

Under the new law that will go into effect in May of next year,
people who die in the state will have the option to have their
bodies transformed into soil suitable for use in gardening in a
process called recomposition.

“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,” said
Katrina Spade, who lobbied for the law and is the founder of
Recompose, a Seattle-based company set to be the first to offer the
service.

“The idea of returning to nature so directly and being folded
back into the cycle of life and death is actually pretty
beautiful,” Spade added in a statement sent to AFP.

She said she became interested in the process about 10 years ago
after turning 30 and thinking more about her own mortality.

Spade then began examining the technical aspects of creating an
environmentally friendly “third option” that could compete with the
$20-billion US funeral industry, which offers conventional burial
and cremation.

Her approach — developed with Washington State University, which
did clinical trials with donor bodies — calls for a dead person to
be placed in an hexagonal steel container filled with wood chips,
alfalfa and straw.

The container is then shut and the body is decomposed by
microbes within 30 days. The end product is a dry, fluffy
nutrient-rich soil resembling what one would buy at a local nursery
and suitable for vegetable gardens.

“Everything — including bones and teeth –- is recomposed,” Spade
said. “That’s because our system creates the perfect environment
for thermophilic (i.e. heat-loving) microbes and beneficial
bacteria to break everything down quite quickly.”

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

‘Socially acceptable materials’
“We have found that the essential methods that we use for livestock
mortality composting are also effective for human disposition,”
said Dr Lynne Carpenter-Boggs, a professor of soil science at
Washington State University. “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.”

According to statistics, more than one in two Americans opt for
cremation. In Washington state, nearly 75 percent of people choose
that option.

Spade expects her company to charge some $5,500 for a “natural
organic reduction,” an amount a little bit over the price of
cremation but less than the price of burial in a casket.

Her innovation comes as so-called “green” or earth-friendly
burials are gaining traction in the United States, where companies
are now offering organic caskets or a burial in which the body is
wrapped in a simple shroud in towns that allow it.

The actor Luke Perry, star of the hit-series “Beverly Hills
90210” who died in March, was buried in a biodegradable suit made
partly out of mushrooms, as he requested.

The so-called “mushroom suit” was developed by Coeio, a
California startup, that said the attire helps the body decompose,
neutralizes toxins found in the body and transfers nutrients to
plant life.

But not everyone is enthusiastic about turning bodies into
garden-variety soil, notably the Catholic church, which has
denounced recomposition as undignified and questioned its
environmental impact.

“The practice of burying the bodies of the deceased shows a
greater esteem toward the deceased,” Joseph Sprague, executive
director of the Washington State Catholic Conference, said in a
letter to the legislative committee that examined the bill signed
on Tuesday.

He added that using one’s remains after recomposition as
ordinary compost was against Church doctrine.

“The Catholic Church believes that disposing human remains in
such manner fails to show enough respect for the body of the
deceased,” he wrote.

AFP

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