General Human Composting? Colorado Could Become Second State to Legalize Turning Your Body Into Soil After Death

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MMAPlaywright

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Human Composting? Colorado Could Become Second State to Legalize Turning Your Body Into Soil After Death
Georgia Slater
April 12, 2021 04:35 PM
Recompose human composting

Colorado may soon join Washington as the second state in the nation to legalize human composting

According to The Denver Post, a bill has already passed one Colorado legislative chamber and is only a few votes and one signature away from allowing people to turn their bodies into soil after death.

The measure, which is sponsored by two Democrats and a Republican, does not allow the soil to be sold or used to grow food for human consumption. Combining the soil of multiple people is also prohibited under the bill.

According to Recompose, a human-composting company already in use in Washington, the process "requires one-eighth of the energy used in conventional burial or cremation" and saves "one metric ton of carbon dioxide per person."

The company's accelerated procedure costs about as much as cremation but is thought to be more environmentally friendly. One body can create a few hundred pounds of soil, according to Recompose.

Credit: Sabel Roizen/Recompose

To begin the process, a body is placed into a "cradle" and then transferred into a vessel filled with wood chips, alfalfa and straw. The body is then covered with more of that material and the vessels get stacked on top of one another.

Katrina Spade, the founder and CEO of Recompose, said she thinks of the process as a "hotel for the dead." The bodies stay in a greenhouse-like facility for about 30 days where non-organic materials are sorted and screened as the body is transformed into soil, according to the Post.

After this step, the soil is moved to a finishing container where it dries out for two to four weeks.

"It's an innovative idea in a state that prides itself on natural beauty and opportunities," Sen. Robert Rodriguez, a Democratic sponsor on the bill, said of human composting.

Denver resident Wendy Deboskey told the Post she was excited about the bill as the idea of human composting appeals to her as an environmentalist.

"It just seems like a really kind of natural and gentle way to be completely returned to the earth, only on an expedited basis," she said.

Credit: Recompose

The other sponsors on the bill, Democratic Rep. Brianna Titone and Republican Rep. Matt Soper, said they have also heard that others are looking forward to the option.

Such procedures aren't entirely uncommon.

When actor Luke Perry died in March 2019, he was buried in a special eco-friendly mushroom suit instead of a traditional casket, similar to the idea of human composting.

His daughter Sophie Perry shared on Instagram at the time that the Beverly Hills, 90210 star excitedly discovered the suit, which "returns your body to the earth without harming the environment," and requested that he be buried in it when the time came.

According to Coeio.com, the company that designs the special burial option, the suit works to essentially speed up the decomposition process. It has built-in mushrooms and other microorganisms that work together to do this, as well as neutralize toxins found in the body and transfer nutrients to plant life.
 

Rambo John J

Eats things that would make a Billy Goat Puke
First 100
Jan 17, 2015
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No worms involved?


Sky burial for me
I don't care about legality

Just freeze me till winter then use a snowmobile like Wind River
 

Jesus X

4 drink minimum.
Sep 7, 2015
28,766
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sounds like the next step after the covid vaccines and passport. after the confiscation of firearms.
 

Splinty

Shake 'em off
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Dec 31, 2014
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We need a radical change in our view on death and rituals.
It's abhorrent that we have the families of the dead routinely spending 5000-10,000+ and an entire industry upselling them at their most vulnerable time.

I welcome any cheaper more responsible ritual that lets the family grieve and disrupts this industry.
 

BrunoMcGyver

Bruno no dey carry last
Dec 30, 2015
6,395
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Fucking oath. When I die bury me in a park somewhere and plant a few nice citrus trees on top of my body. I love the thought of contributing to the world in some way after Im gone. Not even joking either.
 

Hauler

Been fallin so long it's like gravitys gone
Feb 3, 2016
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That's actually really cool.

Better than a shit ton of marble markers in cemeteries.

Al Czervik had it right all along: "Cemeteries are a waste of real estate"
 

Hwoarang

TMMAC Addict
Oct 22, 2015
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We need a radical change in our view on death and rituals.
It's abhorrent that we have the families of the dead routinely spending 5000-10,000+ and an entire industry upselling them at their most vulnerable time.

I welcome any cheaper more responsible ritual that lets the family grieve and disrupts this industry.
Yeah I agree but I dunno if this is addressing that though, in fact it seems the opposite.
Nature and older generations did this for free.
Bury ya grandpa in the back of your plot and plant a tree over it. Simple, cheap free, good for environment especially for the tree you planted, and it's a great momento left behind for decades- hopefully centuries.
We don't need this high tech bullshit.
 

Splinty

Shake 'em off
Admin
Dec 31, 2014
44,116
91,095
Nature and older generations did this for free.
Bury ya grandpa in the back of your plot and plant a tree over it.
Apparently that's still a thing in most rural areas in most states

Some States Require a Funeral Director
After your loved one passes away, the next of kin has the legal right and responsibility to handle all of the funeral arrangements. However, there are 10 states in which a funeral director must be hired in order to file the death certificate or, in some cases, remove the body from the hospital. The most restrictive rules are in New York and Louisiana, where a licensed funeral director must oversee just about anything concerning the body or the funeral itself.


I'd say there are some real public health concerns so the public should have a piece and regulation in on this one.
Patients die of risky diseases and the body can harbor new disease after death.
What's the penalty for getting it wrong and exposing your suburban neighbor to months of rotting corpse smell? Contaminating a water supply? Not considering marsh or bayou like Florida and Louisiana and finding that your body is floating during the next hurricane/flood?

But yeah I think this could be highly deregulated and replaced with burial consultants instead of funeral focused ones.