Washington authorizes "human compost": putting corpses back on the ground to help the environment

Washington is preparing to become the first been allowing an alternative to burials known as "organic natural reduction", an accelerated decomposition process that turn corpses to the ground in a few weeks.

The bill to legalize the process, sometimes called "human compost", has already been approved by the legislature and was sent to Democratic governor Jay Inslee.

If pbaded, the new law will come into effect on May 1, 2020. Jaime Smith, spokeswoman for Islee, said that although the governor's office is still considering the measure, "it seems like it's a serious initiative. to reduce this effect ". we have on the earth.

The sponsor of the bill, Democratic Senator Jamie Pedersen, He said that it made sense to get rid of corpses in this way, with minimal environmental impactespecially in overpopulated urban areas.

The organic natural reduction process produces 0.76 cubic meters (one cubic meter) of dirt per cadaver, enough to fill two large trucks.

Pedersen stated that the same laws that apply to the incineration of remains apply to compost: family members can keep the fertilizer in the urns, use it to plant a tree on private property or spread it on public state lands, to the extent that it complies with the regulations in force concerning human remains.

"As it is surprising to experience this universal human experience (we are all going to die) and This is an area where technology has done nothing for us. For thousands of years, we had two ways to get rid of corpses: burial and burning, "said Pedersen.It seems that technology is ready to help us have better options than we had before."

Pedersen said the idea had been given by one of the residents of his district, an entrepreneur who had made the project his master's thesis.

Katrina Spade, founder and CEO of Recompose, was an architecture student at the University of Mbadachusetts Amherst when the idea came to her. imitate the practice that farmers have been using for decades to get rid of dead livestock.