Human Composting Is Now Legal In Washington State

Before starting my story I apologize for using the human composting expression, I know some people don't like it but I'm afraid my English vocabulary is rather poor, I don't know what word could I use here.

I had a post a while ago when the news broke about the possibility of this alternative to to burying or cremating human remains.

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Ashes to ashes, guts to dirt, says the article published by nbcnews.com about Gov. Jay Inslee signing legislation by which Washington becomes the first state to approve human composting.

It allows licensed facilities to offer "natural organic reduction," which turns a body, mixed with substances such as wood chips and straw, into about two wheelbarrows' worth of soil in a span of several weeks.
Loved ones are allowed to keep the soil to spread, just as they might spread the ashes of someone who has been cremated — or even use it to plant vegetables or a tree.
"It gives meaning and use to what happens to our bodies after death," said Nora Menkin, executive director of the Seattle-based People's Memorial Association, which helps people plan for funerals.
Supporters say the method is an environmentally friendly alternative to cremation, which releases carbon dioxide and particulates into the air, and conventional burial, in which people are drained of their blood, pumped full of formaldehyde and other chemicals that can pollute groundwater, and placed in a nearly indestructible coffin, taking up land. source

Studies show that wood chips, alfalfa and straw have to be used for composting, these create a mixture of nitrogen and carbon, you can accelerates natural decomposition of the human body. A temperature- and moisture-controlled vessel is needed for the process that have to be rotated.

If you can put aside the thought of being about a human body and only look at the effects of cremation and also take into consideration how much money and space is needed to set up and manage cemeteries, you might see the good side of things.

In my country cemeteries lease out space for a certain period and if the lease is not period, the place is given to someone else. Cities have limited land, cemeteries are often at the outskirts of the city, keeping every grave intact for years is a luxury that the city can't afford, no matter how sad it is.

Looks like not everyone is happy with this new method, some are considering it undignified or disgusting.

I'm all for protecting nature, reducing, reusing and recycling, that's not a secret, however, I'm not sure I would opt for this method. Call me old fashioned but I'd prefer the old method. However, I have nothing against others opting for this new method.

That being said, there's only one matter we should discuss and it's an important one!

Making a grave, setting up a headstone in the cemetery also means writing history. Let's remember how many stones were discovered and served as evidence that certain people or nations were living there once. Many were destroyed by wars, natural calamities or governments that wanted to destroy all the evidence indicating that those people were living there. If there will be no graves, this way of writing history will die as well.

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