Page 6 - aruba-today-20190423

A6 U.S. NEWS
Tuesday 23 april 2019

Back to Earth: Washington set to allow 'human composting'

By RACHEL LA CORTE is placed in a temperature
Associated Press and moisture-controlled
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — vessel and rotated.
Washington appears set to Six human bodies — all
become the first state to donors who Spade said
allow a burial alternative wanted to be part of this
known as "natural organic study — were reduced to
reduction" — an acceler- soil during a pilot project at
ated decomposition pro- Washington State University
cess that turns bodies into last year. The transforma-
soil within weeks. tion from body to soil took
The bill legalizing the pro- between four and seven
cess, sometimes referred weeks, Spade said.
to as "human composting," A price for the service
has passed the Legislature hasn't yet been set, but the
and is headed to the desk Recompose website states
of Democratic Gov. Jay In- that the company's "goal is
slee. to build a sustainable busi-
If signed by Inslee, the new ness to make recomposi-
law would take effect May tion a permanent death
1, 2020. Inslee spokeswom- care option, serve people
an Jaime Smith said that for decades to come, and
while the governor's office make our services avail-
is still reviewing the bill, "this In this Friday, April 19, 2019, photo Katrina Spade, the founder and CEO of Recompose, displays able to all who want them."
seems like a thoughtful ef- a sample of the compost material left from the decomposition of a cow, using a combination of According to the Crema-
fort to soften our footprint" wood chips, alfalfa and straw, as she poses in a cemetery in Seattle. tion Association of North
on the Earth. Associated Press America, Washington
The measure's sponsor, state's cremation rate is the
Democratic Sen. Jamie pecially in crowded urban soil per body — enough to is ripe for having technol- highest in the nation. More
Pedersen of Seattle, said areas. fill about two large wheel- ogy help give us some bet- than 78 percent of those
that the low environmental The natural organic reduc- barrows. Pedersen said ter options than we have who died in the state in
impact way to dispose of tion process yields a cubic that the same laws that ap- used." 2017 were cremated, and
remains makes sense, es- yard (0.76 cubic meters) of ply to scattered cremated Pedersen said an entrepre- that number is expected to
remains apply to the soil: neurial constituent whose increase to more than 82
Relatives can keep the study of the process be- percent in 2022.
soil in urns, use it to plant came her master's thesis Rob Goff, executive di-
a tree on private property brought the idea to him. rector of the Washington
or spread it on public land Katrina Spade, the founder State Funeral Directors As-
in the state as long as they and CEO of Recompose , sociation, said his group
comply with existing per- was a graduate student in has been getting questions
missions regarding remains. architecture at University about the new process,
"It is sort of astonishing that of Massachusetts Amherst and Spade has been a
you have this completely when she came up with speaker at a series of re-
universal human experi- the idea — modeling it on cent district meetings of
ence — we're all going to a practice farmers have the association.
die — and here's an area used for decades to dis- "To be able to provide
where technology has pose of livestock. more options for people's
done nothing for us. We She modified that process a choices is a very exciting
have the two means of dis- bit, and found that the use thing," he said. Spade said
posing of human bodies of wood chips, alfalfa and that she doesn't want to re-
that we've had for thou- straw creates a mixture of place cremation or burial,
sands of years, burying and nitrogen and carbon that but instead offer a mean-
burning," Pedersen said. "It accelerates natural de- ingful alternative that is also
just seems like an area that composition when a body environmentally friendly.q