Human composting? It’s on cusp of being legal in Colo.
DENVER — Food scraps and biodegradable utensils are common fodder for compost, but in Colorado, human remains could soon be transformed into soil too.
The Colorado state Legislature passed a bill last week that would allow composting of human remains in lieu of traditional processes like burial and cremation.
State Rep. Brianna Titone, a Democrat who sponsored the bill, said she had gone to funerals and, seeing burial or cremation as the two options, thought, “I don’t know if I want either one of these things.”
When she learned about human composting, she said, “It really excited me.”
If Gov. Jared Polis signs the bill into law, which he said he would, Colorado would become the second state to legalize human composting. Washington state did so in 2019, and legislators in Oregon, California and New York have proposed human composting legislation.
“What can be more personal than the right to decide how your own body is dispensed with after death, and this bill empowers individuals with another choice,” Polis said in a statement. “I will sign it.”
The process of human composting takes about 30 days, said Rep. Matt Soper, a Republican and co-sponsor of the bill. Under the new law, it would be illegal to sell soil produced from human compost or use it to grow food for human consumption.
Soper said he had spoken with the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, which said it would be legal to place the soil on public lands.
Recompose, a company that offers human composting services in Washington, places the body onto a bed of wood chips, alfalfa and straw inside a steel, 8-footlong by 4-foot-tall cylinder, according to its website. Each body creates about 1 cubic yard of soil.
“Everything — including bones and teeth — transforms” during the process, its website says. The contents of the cylinder are also blended by Recompose staff members, “which helps to break up any remaining bone fragments and teeth.”
However, nonorganic material like prosthetics and artificial joints are fetched from the cylinder and removed.
Katrina Spade, Recompose’s co-founder, said about 1 metric ton of carbon dioxide is saved for each body that is composted rather than cremated or buried traditionally. Soper, who represents a rural part of Colorado, said some of his liberal constituents were interested in human composting for its environmental benefits.
Among his more conservative constituents, Soper said, there are “farmers or ranchers who really like the idea of being connected to the land that they were born and raised on.”
The bill received bipartisan support in the Colorado Senate, but 18 votes against it in the House, all from Republicans. Soper said they had raised concerns that composting was not a “dignified” way to dispose of remains, some citing the Catholic Church’s opposition to the practice.