California Becomes Fifth State to Legalize Human Composting

California will join a list of other states that are approving greener ways to bury themselves and their loved ones including Washington, Colorado, Vermont, and Oregon which have also legalized composting human remains.

Earlier this week California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) signed a bill into law that will allow Californians to compost themselves and their loved ones as a greener alternative to traditional burials. Washington was the first state to legalize the process in 2019, after which Oregon and Colorado also legalized the process in 2021.

Vermont also legalized composting of their dead in early 2022, and New York too legalized the practice, though New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) has yet to sign the bill.

More than half (almost 58%) of Americans who must bury their dead choose to cremate them, and that process takes up to three hours to burn a single corpse, and releases almost 600 pounds of carbon dioxide. Estimates guess that about 360,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide are emitted into the atmosphere every year in the United States due to cremations.

The latest United Nations report shows no signs of change when it comes to the ongoing climate crisis, so the turn to “greener” burials is most likely a welcome turn for environmentalists.

“In 1960, only about 3% of people in America were being cremated, so the impact to the environment was negligible,” said Dr. David Sloane, a history and urban planning professor at the University of Southern California. “But if you have 60 to 70% of Americans choosing cremation, that’s millions of people to think about ― and once you add up the numbers globally, you don’t just get a couple of million but many tens of millions, and then the concern becomes more real.”

Assembly Bill 351, which was drafted by California Assembly Member Cristina Garcia was signed by Newsom on Sunday. Officials in California will have five years to come up with guidelines and regulations for natural organic reduction (composting) of their dead.

“With climate change and sea-level rise as very real threats to our environment, this is an alternative method of final disposition that won’t contribute emissions into our atmosphere,” Garcia said in a statement.

The process of composting a body involves placing them in an 8ft-long steel box and covering them in biodegradable materials such as wood chips, alfalfa and straw which will break down the body and turn it into soil after about 30 to 60 days. That soil can then be returned to the relatives of the deceased.

Composting can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $7,000, but a casket burial in California costs about $7,000, and a cremation can cost $6,000.