Washington Becomes First State Ever to Allow Human Composting

• 05.22.2019, 18:44
•  America,  World

Washington Post

Gov. Jay Inslee, the Democrat from Washington, signed a bill into law on Tuesday that allows the composting of human bodies as an alternative to burials and cremations, ''Fox News'' reports. 

The Evergreen state is the first state to approve the measure after an earlier trial study that involved six backers who agreed to the organic reduction. The results were positive and the "soil smelled like soil and nothing else."

Licensed facilities in the state will offer a "natural organic reduction." The body is mixed with substances like wood chips into about two wheelbarrows’ worth of soil in a span of several weeks. 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.

"It gives meaning and use to what happens to our bodies after death," said Nora Menkin, executive director of the Seattle-based People’s Memorial Association, which helps people plan for funerals.