With an upcoming bill, Washington state might be able to start composting dead people. The bill aims to legalize composting human remains and the heat generated by natural microbes should bring the pile up to 55°C for 72 hours, which is hot enough to kill key pathogens.
The method is called “recomposting” and claims to be cheaper and more environmentally friendly than traditional burial or cremation. It involves rapidly decomposing a body and converting the remains into soil. That nutrient-rich material can then be used to grow trees, flowers, and other new life.
The alternative practice hinges on a bill that state senator Jamie Pedersen plans to introduce next month, according to NBC. It would legalize recomposting in Washington where burial and cremation are currently the only acceptable ways to dispose of human remains.
Composting was prominent in the Larry Niven / Jerry Pournelle science fiction novel, Footfall. However, the discussion in Washington was initiated by Katrina Spade in 2013 while working on her master’s in architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
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Washington becomes first US state to legalise human composting
Washington has become the first state in the US to legalise human composting.
Under the new law, people there can now choose to have their body turned into soil after their death.
The process is seen as an alternative to cremations and burials, and as a practical option in cities where land for graveyards is scarce.
At the end of the composting, loved ones are given the soil, which they can use in planting flowers, vegetables or trees.
Grow vegetables using human compost from loved one, despair as pests eat all of it.
Previously: 'Urban Death Project' Proposes to Compost the Dead
Washington Could Become the First State to Compost the Dead
In 2021, a Seattle Washington funeral company is set to open its doors and begin accepting customers in a first of a kind human composting site.
US 'deathcare' company Recompose will be able to turn the deceased into a cubic yard of soil over a period of as little as 30 days, using one-eighth of the energy of cremation and saving as much as a metric ton of carbon dioxide from being produced compared to other forms of burial.
The company will be able to service up to 75 individuals at once.
the process sees bodies placed in reusable vessels covered in woodchips, alfalfa and hay, and sealed away in hexagonal tubes.
There the corpse's temperature is regulated while its surroundings are aerated, allowing naturally occurring bacteria to break down the body over the course of four to seven weeks.
The deceased is then returned to their loved ones as compost, limiting the carbon footprint from cremations and traditional burials while cutting out the embalming fluid chemicals which can leach into the soil and can pollute groundwater.
If desired, the dearly departed dirt can also be donated to
a land soil project to provide a forest on the state's Bell Mountain with additional nutrients, with one person creating 2,000 to 3,000 pounds of soil.
Previous Coverage Here, Here, and Here
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @04:51AM
When we could have a fresh aristachu post instead
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @05:09AM
... should be the very first to be shoveled onto the compost pile.
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Fucking liberals.
At some point they are going to have to be exterminated, and by any means necessary.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by exaeta on Friday January 04 2019, @05:26AM (12 children)
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Friday January 04 2019, @06:34AM (11 children)
Say, what? Do you think you'd be likely to eat the remains?
Really? After one month in a tumbler with weeds decomposing in the same time as the body?
The ncbnews link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @01:09PM (3 children)
Prions are much tougher than either bacteria or viruses. If anthrax can survive composting, it would be a doddle for a prion. It is strongly suspected that prions can remain infectious after standard hospital autoclaving.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday January 04 2019, @06:04PM (2 children)
Yes, but... will prions in the soil make their way back into the vertebrate animal foodchain before being digested / decomposed by fungi and other extreme chemical challenges?
Killing it with fire isn't the only way to be sure.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday January 04 2019, @11:57PM (1 child)
Anthrax manages to do it. Bury a sheep killed by Anthrax and a few years later the Anthrax spores have worked their way back up to the surface ready to start the cycle anew thanks to Earth worms and various other denizens of the soil.
If a Prion can survive an autoclave at 121C then there isn't really much in the soil that could threaten it.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 05 2019, @04:23AM
Anthrax is an evolved organism, prions are little more than chemicals - a chiral reversal of common proteins. Self replicating in a simpler way than viruses, dangerous like a slow fire, but not something with a lot of refinement and a multi-stage lifecycle like anthrax.
They definitely deserve due care, but a big part of how they're a problem today is feeding the entire CNS of infected livestock to other livestock. Digestive juices deactivate most of them, but not all...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by exaeta on Friday January 04 2019, @04:57PM (6 children)
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @05:44PM (3 children)
It sounds as if the entire human population should have been destroyed by these indestructible prions a long time ago.
Remember Cruetzfeld-Jacob rampaging through the UK? Supposed to happen by now. Anyone still alive over there?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @10:06PM (2 children)
The tradeoff of their design is that survive-ability is gained at the expense of spread-ability. If they evolve to spread more easily, they have to increase complexity, making them easier to destroy by natural and biological means. You pretty much have to eat a relatively large quantity of of them directly to get "infected".
We probably consume a couple of prions every day, and those few get into our system and screw up a hundred or so cells over time. The body can absorb such damage.
If they grew in complexity to toggle these trade-offs, essentially they'd be turning themselves into viruses or bacterium-like microbes.
(Score: 2) by exaeta on Friday January 04 2019, @10:27PM
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 3, Informative) by exaeta on Friday January 04 2019, @10:39PM
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @09:22PM (1 child)
So use human-compost to plant trees or non-edible plants, just like with most other waste products that can carry infectious material...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 05 2019, @11:28AM
How many humans will strictly follow warning like "do not use for edible plants" ?
Also, pets do eat lawn grass and earthworms.
Another consideration is, dead human body tends to be filled with medicines and other chemicals that survive composting and should not be released into the environment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @05:28AM (1 child)
that thing in the brown bin is not my mother!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 05 2019, @01:18AM
Compost the undead.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @05:32AM (12 children)
The article does not explain what happens to the bones. As everyone knows, they are not biodegradable, being inorganic. But there is organic matter inside the bones. They also will be "removing" (???) artificial hips and, presumably, dental implants, pumps, pacemakers, shunts, screws, plates - whatever does not decay. With these caveats, disposal in fire appears to be more comfortable, more ethical, more efficient, and takes less labor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @05:53AM (2 children)
Comfortable?!?!? Who are you, Satan?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @05:56AM
Allah, the Great Deceiver
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @05:58AM
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @06:23AM (2 children)
I'll keep my body around for resurrection, thank you
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @06:55AM
As my Grandpa put it when my Catholic family freaked out about his decision to be cremated, "If God can figure out how to put your mother's cancer ridden body back together, not to mention bring our decomposed bodies back to life in the first place, I don't think a cremation will be much of an obstacle."
(Score: 2) by The Archon V2.0 on Friday January 04 2019, @07:25PM
Joke's on you, the dragon killed the cleric first.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Friday January 04 2019, @06:39AM
Oh, but they are. Put them in an acidic peat-ty soil, the bacteria there will love some phosphate ions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @07:57AM (4 children)
https://www.quora.com/Which-part-of-the-human-body-remains-un-burned-after-cremation [quora.com]
Bones are not burned. They remain, so.....
They do that in cremation too. Some of the metals in implants are money maker ;) More seriously, it depends on local laws. In some countries, you have to return the implants after death. Heck, many implants are removed from body before cremation.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140311-body-parts-that-live-after-death [bbc.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @08:03AM (1 child)
The Nazis certainly thought so. Suprising the amount of gold that can be extracted from teeth for example.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @07:28PM
You can also recover it after burning. It's common to melt metals down as part of the process of separating gold from the other mineral content of ore. Gold will tend towards the bottom with the lighter and more common elements floating to the surface.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @01:09PM
bones are not bio degradable? tell me not. i have a funny video i cannot upload to youtube that is about my dog eating a bone and watching it turn him into a triangular shape until he poops it back out. the pooping the non bio degradable bone is the most funny part.
dont ask me why he doesnt just eat it again, over and over and over, sine he cannot really digest it.
also they found some gen in animals with bones that once ingested makes dead bones invisible to the eye thus all meat eaters cannot see the mountains of bio un degradable bones that surround us.
a long time veggetarin broke out in tears and sobed hysterically when i asked her about this and and when pressed to for an answer, said that you dont need a rocket to get to the moon but that a secret vegetarian society has build a invisible ladder made from bio undegradable BONES to it already ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @09:29PM
Burnt bones make good soil-additions though, similar to charcoal. The high porosity and low rate of decomposition makes them useful for improving bacterial populations in the soil.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Friday January 04 2019, @05:51AM (3 children)
Between this and donating all my organs which can theoretically save about a dozen lives, at this point in my life I feel like a bit of a greedy asshole for hanging around.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @06:05AM (1 child)
Why do you value your own life less than you value others' lives? (excluding family and friends, of course)
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Friday January 04 2019, @04:18PM
The needs of the many ... :)
It's mostly a joke, but unless I accomplish something extraordinary, it's probably the best help I can give. I think I'll wait until I'm finished using the organs, but I ride a motorcycle, so there's still hope. It's certainly a good argument for donating organs. I actually have my whole body donated ... might as well entertain some medical students while I'm at it.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by nitehawk214 on Friday January 04 2019, @05:40PM
There is always a relevant xkcd [xkcd.com].
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 5, Funny) by snufu on Friday January 04 2019, @06:14AM
It's news.... IT'S NEWWWWS!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @06:32AM
http://judgedredd.wikia.com/wiki/Resyk [wikia.com]
Just sayin!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @01:35PM
I read it, like, 30 or more years ago, but all I remember about composting in that story is that the reporter was killed and mixed into the compost pile, but the composting was only in that one scene, and the pile had nothing to do with human remains, and took up a couple pages out of 300 or so.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @10:48PM
They love their grubby paws on nothing else like sticky sex and dead people.
(Score: 2) by Valkor on Saturday January 05 2019, @09:18AM
"It is every citizen's final duty to go into the tanks, and become one with all the people." - Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, Ethics for Tomorrow.