Natural Organic Reduction AKA Human Composting

I grew up in Washington state. Even though I haven’t lived there in a long time, my ears perk up anytime there’s a story in the news about doings in the area. A recent one in the Los Angeles Times talked about a bill that recently passed the Washington state legislature giving residents the option of natural organic reduction aka human composting. Yesterday, Governor Jay Inslee signed it into law. You can read the Seattle Times article here: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/washington-becomes-first-state-to-legalize-human-composting/

I also found this interesting article on the process: https://psmag.com/environment/is-human-composting-the-green-future-of-burials

I’d never heard of natural organic reduction. It’s supposed to be a more environmentally friendly alternative to burial or cremation. It reduces the carbon emissions emitted by cremation and takes up less space than a burial. I honestly have never thought about whether or not burial and cremation are green processes or not.

The process works like this: a body is placed with wood chips, alfalfa and straw in a steel vessel where it’s decomposed by microbes. The end product is soil, similar to topsoil you can buy at a local nursery. Customers can take the soil and spread it in their garden or donate it to conservation groups for tree planting. The process takes 30 days. One body produces on average one cubic yard of soil, about two wheelbarrows worth.

Apparently, a similar process is used to dispose of bodies of animals such as cattle in some areas.

I expected the issue to be more controversial than it appears to be. I scoured the internet, but couldn’t find many people expressing negative comments about it. There were some concerns about spreading disease and some people doubted if the process would actually work. But, other than that, not much.

As a mystery writer, I can imagine a number of interesting scenarios. I can also see family members not being particularly enamored with a loved one’s wish to use this process.

What do you all think?