In 1855, Walt Whitman shared the famous lines from Leaves of Grass: “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love/ If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.”
More than 150 years later, you can take his poetry literally, at least in the state of Washington.
Last month, Washington became the first state to legalize the composting of humans. So instead of getting cremated or buried, the deceased can actually return to the earth. Gov. Jay Inslee signed the bill to legalize human composting, a process that turns dead bodies into soil.
“It’s about time we … allow some technology to be applied to this universal human experience … because we think that people should have the freedom to determine for themselves how they’d like their body to be disposed of,” Democratic state Sen. Jamie Pedersen told CNN.
Katrina Spade, the CEO of a human composting business called Recompose, told a Seattle news outlet that the process is environmentally friendly, since it uses one-eighth of the energy of cremation and each person who chooses composting saves more than a metric ton of carbon dioxide.
Through the human composting process, which Recompose would perform in special facilities, the “body is covered in natural materials, like straw or wood chips, and over the course of about three to seven weeks, thanks to microbial activity, it breaks down into soil,” she said.
For those worried less about the creepiness of becoming dirt and more about the price tag, human composting probably falls in between burial and cremation. The average burial cost can range from $8,000 to $25,000, and a typical cremation in America costs about $2,000. Spade says she expects to charge about $5,500 for the human composting process.
After the process is done, the deceased’s family can then receive the soil and do with it what they choose, whether that means spreading it in a forest or using it to plant flowers.
Spade says human composting is more “meaningful” than cremation or burial, and she expects others to feel the same way. The bill won’t go into effect until next May, though. So until then, don’t look for anyone under your boot-soles.
