Washington became the first state to legalize “human composting” on Tuesday, when Gov. Jay Inslee signed a law that will allow human bodies to be converted into soil in licensed facilities.

The state law, which passed with bipartisan support, is aimed at providing a burial alternative that is less costly and more environmentally friendly than cremation or traditional coffin burials. It will take effect on May 1, 2020.

Inslee, a Democrat running for president in the 2020 election, has made climate change a focus of his campaign, calling it “the most urgent challenge of our time.”

“We’re the first generation to feel the sting of climate change, and we’re the last that can do something about it,” he said in a video announcing his campaign in March. “I’m running for president because I am the only candidate who will make defeating climate change our nation’s number one priority.”

One of the strongest supporters of the legislation was Katrina Spade, the founder and CEO of Recompose, a company based in Washington state that developed a process that “gently converts human remains into soil, so that we can nourish new life after we die.” Spade researched human composting at Washington State University and led a study of the process with six people, who volunteered for their bodies to be composted after they died.

“For some, it was a way to return to the natural cycles to, you know, give back whatever nutrients we have in our bodies when we die, even if it’s just a little bit, rather than burn that nutrient up or bury it in the ground,” Spade said in an interview earlier this month with NPR’s Here and Now.

She said the process for human bodies mirrors the composting process used by many farmers for livestock. Through Recompose, the body is placed in a vessel with a combination of wood chips, alfalfa and straw. A fan system adds oxygen to the mix, and the body is broken down by microbes within a month, turning into about two wheelbarrows of soil. She said the process will cost about $5,000 — less than the cost of the average burial, but more expensive than a simple cremation.

Some critics have raised concerns that the process is not respectful.

“The image they have is that you’re going to toss Uncle Henry out in the backyard and cover him with food scraps,” state Sen. Jamie Pedersen, a Democrat who sponsored the bill, told the Associated Press.

But Pedersen has said the process is a good way to reduce the environmental impact of disposing of human remains, especially in crowded areas where there might be little space to add to cemeteries: “I think it’s really a lovely way of exiting the earth.” </s> Urban cemeteries are filling up. Cremation releases greenhouse gases. Now, Washington has legalized a third option: human composting.

Legislation allowing the practice of “aboveground decomposition” to begin next May was signed into law on Tuesday by Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington, making the state the first place in the nation — and probably the world, legal experts said — to explicitly allow human remains to become compost.

The bill will allow bodies to be placed in a receptacle with organic material like wood chips to help speed up the natural transition to soil.

After several weeks, families will be allowed to keep the soil to spread, just as they save the cremated ashes of their loved ones. </s> Democratic presidential candidate and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill into law Tuesday that makes the state the first in the U.S. to legalize human composting.

Why it matters: From 2020, people can choose to have their body turned into soil after their death, as an alternative to cremations and burials. The next step for Washington is to build the United States' first urban "organic reduction" funeral home, per the Seattle Times. Inslee has made environmental issues a cornerstone of his 2020 bid.

Go deeper: Jay Inslee on the issues, in under 500 words </s> Washington on Tuesday became the first US state to legalize 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," Ms Spade added in a statement sent to news agency 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.

"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.

"The Catholic Church believes that disposing human remains in such a manner fails to show enough respect for the body of 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.

Election Results for Lok Sabha Election 2019 will be out on May 23. Get the latest election news and live updates on ndtv.com/elections. Catch all the action on NDTV Live. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and Instagram for news updates from each of the 543 parliamentary seats for the election 2019 </s> • Washington State is the first in the country to legalize human composting as an alternative to a traditional burial or cremation.
• The bill, SB 5001 “concerning human remains,” was signed by Gov. Jay Inslee on Tuesday.
• Proponents of the law say it is an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional means of disposition, like burial or cremation.

Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee, who is running for president in the crowded 2020 Democratic field, signed SB 5001 “concerning human remains,” on Tuesday – making Washington State the first in the country to legalize human composting as an alternative to a traditional burial or cremation.

Under the law, which is slated to take effect May 1, 2020, human remains can be disposed of through “natural organic reduction” or through alkaline hydrolysis, known as liquid cremation, which uses a chemical process including water, alkaline chemicals, and heat to reduce human remains to bone fragments. That practice is already legal in some states.

Inslee is running for president as “the climate candidate,” with a progressive platform focused on environmental issues. Cremation emits carbon dioxide and particulates into the air, while burials take up land and can pollute the air and soil. The law signed Tuesday was touted as an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional means of disposition, which Washington State Sen. Jamie Pedersen, a Democrat from Seattle who sponsored the bill, described as “a serious weight on the earth and the environment as your final farewell,” according to The Associated Press.

The bill, which passed both legislative chambers with bipartisan majorities, opens the doors for a Seattle-based company called Recompose to become the country’s first funeral home to offer human composting.

Pedersen told the AP that the legislation was inspired by Recompose’s founder, Katrina Spade, who first began researching the funeral industry as a architecture graduate student in Massachusetts. She founded Recompose in 2017 and is working to raise around $7 million to create a facility in Seattle and to begin expansion efforts. Recompose plans to charge around $5,500 for the service, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Once the law takes effect, Recompose plans to place the deceased in vessels, with material like wood chips and straw, as microbes break down bodies over the span of around a month. Those remains will create soil that friends or family have the option to take home and spread as a memory of their loved ones.

The state’s funeral industry has had mixed reactions to the practice.

“I think some people were fine with it, others were not so fine with it,” Rob Goff, executive director of the Washington State Funeral Directors Association, told the Seattle Times. “It all boils down to personal choice for the families we’re serving.”
• Some Democrats are already blasting Joe Biden’s reported ‘middle ground’ climate change plan for not going far enough
• Ice sheets are melting far faster than we thought – in a worst-case climate breakdown, coastal cities like New York and Shanghai would be swamped
• Scientists found 414 million pieces of trash on these tiny islands in the Indian Ocean – more proof that the plastic problem is out of control </s> Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Loved ones are given the soil to keep

Washington has become the first state in the US to legalise human composting.

Under the new law, people there can now choose to have their body turned into soil after their death.

The process is seen as an alternative to cremations and burials, and as a practical option in cities where land for graveyards is scarce.

At the end of the composting, loved ones are given the soil, which they can use in planting flowers, vegetables or trees.

The bill was signed into law by Governor Jay Inslee on Tuesday.

Katrina Spade, who lobbied for the law to be introduced, founded a company that could be the first to provide the service.

"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," Ms Spade told Agence France-Presse.

How does it work?

Ms Spade says the process for her company, Recompose, places a body in a hexagonal steel container filled with alfalfa, wood chips and straw.

The container is then shut, and the body decomposes naturally within 30 days, creating two wheelbarrows' worth of soil.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Human composting is seen as an eco-friendly alternative to burials and cremations

Environmentally friendly burial alternatives are becoming increasingly popular.

Earlier this month it was revealed that late actor Luke Perry was laid to rest in a "mushroom suit" in California.

The suit's creator, Jae Rhim Lee, says that it reduces the amount of toxic pollutants that are released into the environment during the body's decomposition and cremation.

The process of human composting is already legal in Sweden, while natural burials - where the body is buried without a casket or with a biodegradable coffin - are legal in the UK. </s> Washington state became the first state to legalize human composting on Tuesday when Gov. Jay Inslee signed SB 5001 into law.

The new law will make it legal to compost human remains, which is called natural organic reduction, as well as a practice called water cremation.

The bill signing was among many that were signed into law Tuesday. Human composting will be legal by May 1, 2020.

State law previously dictated that remains be disposed of by burial or cremation.

Loved ones are allowed to keep the soil to spread, just as they might spread the ashes of someone who has been cremated — or even use it to plant vegetables or a tree.

Supporters say the method is an environmentally friendly alternative to cremation, which releases carbon dioxide and particulates into the air, and conventional burial, in which people are drained of their blood, pumped full of formaldehyde and other chemicals that can pollute groundwater, and placed in a nearly indestructible coffin, taking up land.

"That's a serious weight on the earth and the environment as your final farewell," said Sen. Jamie Pedersen, the Seattle Democrat who sponsored the measure.

He said the legislation was inspired by his neighbor: Katrina Spade, who was an architecture graduate student at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, when she began researching the funeral industry. She came up with the idea for human composting, modeling it on a practice farmers have long used to dispose of livestock.

Spade founded Recompose in 2017, a company that wants to give people the choice to become soil when they die. She previously said they worked with Washington State University to test its safety for environmental and human health. Six people donated their bodies for the study.

"With cremation, you have the burning of fossil fuels and emission of carbon and mercury particulates into the atmosphere. With conventional burial, there is quite a carbon footprint from the manufacturer and transport of caskets, grave liners, and then the upkeep of cemeteries," said Spade. "So, you have those two options, and if people want those options, absolutely they need to remain. But recomposition uses about an eighth of the energy of cremation and also has a significant carbon reduction thanks in part from the sequestration that happens of the materials during the process."

Recompose is working on raising nearly $7 million to establish a facility in Seattle and begin to expand elsewhere, Spade said.

Cemeteries across the country are allowed to offer natural or "green" burials, by which people are buried in biodegradable shrouds or caskets without being embalmed. Composting could be a good option in cities where cemetery land is scarce, Pedersen said. Spade described it as "the urban equivalent to natural burial."

The state senator said he has received angry emails from people who object to the idea, calling it undignified or disgusting.

"The image they have is that you're going to toss Uncle Henry out in the backyard and cover him with food scraps," Pedersen said.

To the contrary, he said, the process will be respectful.

Recompose's website envisions an atrium-like space where bodies are composted in compartments stacked in a honeycomb design. Families will be able to visit, providing an emotional connection typically missing at crematoriums, the company says.

"It's an interesting concept," said Edward Bixby, president of the Placerville, California-based Green Burial Council. "I'm curious to see how well it's received."

Editor's Note: The video below aired in February when the bill passed the state Senate. </s> (CNN) — Washington has become the first state in the nation to pass a law allowing composting as an alternative to burial or cremation of human remains.

Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill Tuesday legalizing human composting. The bill will go into effect in May next year.

Currently in Washington, bodies can either be cremated or buried. The process of recomposition provides a third option that speeds up the process of turning dead bodies into soil, a practice colloquially known as “human composting.” The bill describes the process as a “contained, accelerated conversion of human remains to soil.”

The bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Jamie Pedersen, said it is an environmentally friendly way of disposing of human remains.

“It’s about time we apply some technology, allow some technology to be applied to this universal human experience … because we think that people should have the freedom to determine for themselves how they’d like their body to be disposed of,” he said.

Katrina Spade, CEO of the human composting company, Recompose, explained the process of turning a dead body into soil to CNN affiliate KIRO.

“(The) body is covered in natural materials, like straw or wood chips, and over the course of about three to seven weeks, thanks to microbial activity, it breaks down into soil,” she said.

Luke Perry’s daughter says he was buried in a mushroom suit

While the body is being broken down, she said, families of the deceased can visit the facility and will ultimately receive the soil that remains. It’s up to the family to determine how they want to use that soil.

The process was the focus of a study at Washington State University in which six people donated their bodies for research, KIRO reported.

“We proved recomposition was indeed safe and effective for humans as well,” Spade said.

The average burial can cost between $8,000 and $25,000. Cremation can top $6,000. Spade told the affiliate she hopes to charge about $5,500 for human composting.

Human composting supporter Leslie Christian told the affiliate it’s an attractive option from an environmental perspective. She said a lot of people approve of the process, including her brother, who told her he wants his soil to be used to plant tomatoes. </s> The state of Washington is now the first in the nation to allow composting as a viable alternative to burial or cremation.

On Tuesday, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed legislation permitting “natural organic reduction” as an acceptable process that licensed facilities can use to dispose of human bodies.

Such facilities would be able to turn a body into soil, mixing it with various substances like wood chips, straw and alfalfa, “in a span of several weeks,” according to The Associated Press.

“Loved ones are allowed to keep the soil to spread, just as they might spread the ashes of someone who has been cremated,” the AP noted, “or even use it to plant vegetables or a tree.”

The process is similar to “livestock composting,” which some farmers and ranchers use to dispose of dead animals.

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“I think this is great,” Joshua Slocum, director of the public-advocacy group Funeral Consumers Alliance, told The Seattle Times.

“Disposition of the dead, despite our huge emotional associations with it, is not … a matter of public health and public safety.”

“It gives meaning and use to what happens to our bodies after death,” Nora Menkin, executive director of the People’s Memorial Association, which is based in Seattle, told the AP.

Composting is better for the environment than cremation or burial, the bill’s supporters say.

Cremation results in the release of carbon dioxide into the air, while traditional burial takes up large amounts of land.

State Sen. Jamie Pedersen, who sponsored the legislation, suggested that composting could be a particularly good option for disposing of loved ones’ remains in cities, where the amount of cemetery land might be limited.

“That’s a serious weight on the earth and the environment as your final farewell,” Pedersen, a Seattle Democrat, told the AP, referring to traditional burial.

The senator credited his neighbor, Katrina Spade, who became interested in the funeral industry while attending the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Spade founded her company, Recompose, as a way to introduce the idea of human composting to the public.

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In an interview last week on NPR’s “Here & Now,” Spade talked about her plans to open a facility where families could conduct services with their loved ones’ bodies, as well as wash the body before the composting process.

“Recompose is going to have rooms in our facility where families can spend a little extra time with the body itself,” Spade said.

“The idea is really for families to do what feels right for them.”

Such a facility would include honeycomb-shaped vessels where families could lay their loved ones’ bodies.

But some who oppose the bill argue that composting human bodies is disrespectful.

Pedersen “said he has received angry emails from people who object to the idea, calling it undignified or disgusting,” according to the AP.

“The image they have is that you’re going to toss Uncle Henry out in the backyard and cover him with food scraps,” the state senator said.

Rob Goff, executive director of the Washington State Funeral Directors Association, said Spade discussed the concept at the group’s spring meeting.

Goff said Spade faced critical questions from those in the industry.

“I think some people were fine with it, others were not so fine with it, but it all boils down to personal choice for the families we’re serving,” Goff told The Times.

“People, primarily in Eastern Washington, are interested but not necessarily excited to run out, promote this, and get this product in our market,” he added.

The law officially goes into effect in May 2020.

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Washington becomes the first U.S. state to legalize human composting, the right to allow people to have their body turned into soil after death. The process is seen as an alternative to traditional cremations and burials.