The only way I’d choose to come back from death

In a few years, people in California will have a new choice for what to do with their loved ones’ bodies after death: put them in their garden.

…Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law that makes human composting legal in the state beginning in 2027. The bill, AB-351, makes California the fifth state to allow human composting since it was first legalized in Washington in 2019 (Oregon, Colorado, and Vermont are the other places where you can make yourself into mulch).

“AB 351 will provide an additional option for California residents that is more environmentally-friendly and gives them another choice for burial,” Assemblymember Cristina Garcia, who sponsored the bill, said in a release. “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.”

Human beings cause more than enough trouble while we’re alive, but the practices we’ve developed to handle our bodies after death are also pretty bad for the environment. Burying a dead body takes about three gallons of embalming liquid per corpse—stuff like formaldehyde, methanol, and ethanol—and about 5.3 million gallons total gets buried with bodies each year. Meanwhile, cremation creates more than 500 pounds (227 kilograms) of carbon dioxide from the burning process of just one body, and the burning itself uses up the energy equivalent of two tanks of gasoline. In the U.S., cremation creates roughly 360,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide each year.

C’mon, folks. Get onboard with a future appropriate to common sense disposition of what remains after you shuffle off this mortal coil. If you’ve dedicated a chunk of your life to doing good…consider keeping it up after you’re dead and gone.