I’m offering this slogan for proponents of “human composting” if and when legislation to legalize it is introduced in the Illinois General Assembly.
The state of Washington OK’d the practice of returning dead bodies to the soil in 2019. And, as a story in the Tribune reported earlier this week, the governor of Colorado has announced he will sign a bill permitting the practice that just passed his state’s legislature with overwhelming bipartisan majorities.
Which state will be next? Oregon, where a human composting bill passed the House 44-3 on April 10? California, where a bill to allow it passed out of a legislative committee by a 19-0 vote on April 20? New York, where a similar bill has advanced to a third reading in the State Assembly? Delaware , where a bill was just introduced in the House on April 15?
Illinois? Well, no such proposal has yet been introduced in Springfield.
The concept at work here is that it’s more environmentally friendly and, to some of us, more spiritually satisfying to allow a dead human body to decay and become a nourishing part of the earth that once nourished it than it is to pump that body full of chemicals and store it in a vault underground or incinerate it into useless ashes.
As I noted when I last touched on this topic in 2019, the process, more formally known as natural organic reduction, is based on a method already used for disposing of livestock. The body is placed in a reusable hexagonal steel container with wood chips, alfalfa and straw to accelerate decomposition. Heating the container to 131 degrees kills off any dangerous pathogens.
After about a month, the body and ingredients of the container are transformed into two wheelbarrows worth of odorless, nutrient-rich soil — “unrecognizable visually, chemically or microbiologically as human remains” according to a Washington State University pilot study — that, after two more weeks of drying, can be distributed in a garden bed, packed around the base of a tree or otherwise scattered on private property.
Washington’s first commercial “investments,” as they’re lyrically called, took place in December 2020 at Recompose, a company outside Seattle that has 10 containers, and Herland Forest, a “natural burial cemetery” in the southern part of the state that now has three containers.
Return Home, a similar facility also near Seattle, will have 75 reduction containers when it opens at the end of this month, according to founder and CEO Micah Truman.
Anthony Estrella, the services specialist at Recompose, said the company, which charges $5,500 for the service, “is as busy as it can be” and frequently receives inquiries from around the world from potential clients and their families who are intrigued by the idea.
You may find the idea distasteful. The Catholic Conference in Colorado does and lobbied against legalization, saying it violates the sanctity of the human body, and “the dignity of the human person is the basis of a moral society.”
I’ll stand with them the moment any lawmaker proposes mandatory human composting.
But this is about choice. The choice to see dignity and morality in rejoining the circle of life. And the choice to believe that there can be nothing more sanctified than living on to repay, if only at the microbial level, the planet that gave us so much.
And the choice is really not much different than the choice of a “green burial” in a biodegradable box or shroud currently allowed in the state. Such burials, which don’t use embalming fluids and have a tiny carbon footprint, are available at a handful of cemeteries. But they don’t allow you to end up in your own yard or on a forest floor.
So how about it, Illinois?
State Rep. Dan Brady of Bloomington, the deputy Republican leader in the House and a licensed funeral director and embalmer, told me he’s open to the idea and respects the environmental concerns and wishes of those interested in natural organic reduction, but has “hesitations and concerns” about safety issues regarding the placement of the composted remains and the respectful treatment of the human body.
North Side Democratic Rep. Kelly Cassidy was among the handful of lawmakers who replied to my “Hey, how about it?” note Wednesday with an expression of some interest in advancing the idea. She added that given the press of business right now in the General Assembly, she could only offer to have “an eye on next year.”
We’re not going to be next to join this revolution in death, in other words. But let’s not be last.
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