Residents of the Golden State will have the option to convert their corpses
into nutrient-rich compost by 2027.
California has joined the expanding list of places where it is legal to
compost a deceased person's body. Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday signed a new
legislation requiring the state of California to create rules for the
practice of "natural organic reduction" by 2027.
2019
saw the legalization
of
human composting
in Washington, which was followed by
Colorado
and
Oregon
in 2021. In June 2022,
Vermont
made the practice lawful.
Typically, a body is placed in a steel container for human composting, and
then it is covered with organic materials like straw, wood chips, and
alfalfa. In around 30 days,
microbes decompose
the plant matter and the body, turning the different parts into
nutrient-rich soil. The compost is then removed from the container by staff
members at specialized human composting funeral homes, where it is allowed
to cure for two to six weeks. After that, family members can either give the
human compost to be dispersed in conservation areas or use it like
any other sort of compost, such as by incorporating it into a flower garden.
According to
Recompose, a
Seattle-based funeral home that specialized in human composting, each body
generates around one cubic yard of compost. According to the Recompose
website, the soil "returns the nutrients from our bodies to the natural world" and
"restores forests, sequesters carbon and nurtures new life."
According to Katrina Spade, CEO of Recompose, "natural organic reduction is
safe and sustainable, letting our corpses to return to the soil once we
die," as Stephen Hobbs of the
Sacramento Bee
wrote.
Human composting is promoted as a more environmentally friendly alternative
to cremation, which, according to the
Cremation Association of North America, currently accounts for more than half of all body dispositions in the
United States and is anticipated to grow in popularity over the coming
years.
According to some estimates, the cremation procedure—which involves
burning, dissolving, or otherwise processing human remains into ashes and
bone fragments—emits an average of 534.6 pounds of carbon dioxide into the
air per body, or about 360,000 metric tons of this greenhouse gas in the
U.S. each year, according to Becky Little of
National Geographic.
Because the chemicals used to embalm a body can seep into the earth,
burials can also have a negative impact on the environment. Each year, 5.3
million gallons of substances including formaldehyde, methanol, and ethanol
are buried, according to Molly Taft's reporting for
Gizmodo. According to Julia Calderone of
Tech Insider, caskets and burial vaults need almost 2 million tons of concrete, steel,
and other resources each year in addition to 30 million board feet of
wood.
The California congressman behind the human composting bill
tweeted
on Monday, "Wildfires, catastrophic drought, and record heat waves remind us
that climate change is real and we must do everything we can to cut methane
and CO2 emissions."
But not everyone finds the prospect of dismembering their loved ones
appealing. According to Catholic News Agency's Jonah McKeown, the California
Catholic Conference
rejected the initiative, stating in a letter from June that human composting
"reduces the human body to just a throwaway commodity."
Similar objection was voiced by the
New York
State Catholic Conference to a human
composting
bill that has been proposed in New York, claiming that the procedure does
not "guard and preserve basic human dignity and respect."
The group claims that a large number of New Yorkers would be, at best,
uneasy about the suggested composting/fertilizing approach because it is
more suitable for vegetable trimmings and eggshells than for human
bodies.
