Human composting, formally called natural organic reduction, isn’t illegal everywhere. Thirteen U.S. states have legalized the practice since Washington became the first in 2019, and legislation has been introduced in 15 more. But it remains prohibited or simply unaddressed by law in the majority of states and in most countries worldwide. The reasons come down to a mix of religious opposition, public health questions, funeral industry resistance, and the basic reality that laws haven’t caught up to a process that barely existed a decade ago.
Where It’s Legal and Where It’s Not
Washington legalized human composting in 2019. Since then, twelve other states have followed, including New York, California, Colorado, Oregon, Minnesota, Maryland, and Georgia. Outside the U.S., Sweden has also legalized the practice. In the UK, it’s not yet permitted, though natural burials using biodegradable coffins are allowed.
In most U.S. states, the issue isn’t that human composting was specifically banned. It’s that existing funeral and cemetery laws were written decades ago with only two options in mind: burial and cremation. When a state’s legal code defines acceptable disposition of human remains as those two choices and nothing else, any alternative is effectively illegal by omission. Legalizing human composting requires new legislation that defines the process, sets safety standards, and establishes licensing requirements for facilities. That takes political will, and in many states, the topic simply hasn’t reached the top of the legislative agenda.
Religious Opposition
The Catholic Church has been the most organized voice against legalization. In 2023, the U.S. bishops’ doctrine committee issued a formal statement concluding that human composting fails to meet the Church’s requirements for proper respect for the bodies of the dead. Their core argument is theological: because Catholic teaching holds that human beings are a unity of body and soul, the body retains inherent dignity after death. Burial is considered the most appropriate way to express faith in bodily resurrection.
The committee specifically objected that at the end of the composting process, the body has completely decomposed into a mass of soil, with nothing distinguishably left to be laid to rest in a sacred place. This same concern led the Church to oppose alkaline hydrolysis (sometimes called water cremation), where the body is dissolved into roughly 100 gallons of liquid that gets treated as wastewater. For the Church, both methods cross a line that even cremation doesn’t, since cremated ashes can still be kept intact and interred in a consecrated location.
In states where Catholic communities are large and politically active, this opposition has real legislative weight. Bishops and Catholic advocacy groups have testified against human composting bills, and in some cases their influence has been enough to stall or defeat proposed legislation.
Public Health and Pathogen Concerns
Opponents frequently raise the question of whether composting can reliably destroy dangerous pathogens in human remains. During Minnesota’s legislative debate, the state’s funeral directors association argued that the reduction process would not kill certain pathogens such as E. coli. This kind of testimony gives lawmakers pause, even though the science tells a more nuanced story.
States that have legalized the process set strict temperature and time requirements. California’s regulations, for example, require that composting vessels maintain temperatures of at least 131°F (55°C) for a minimum of three consecutive days. These are the same pathogen reduction standards used in commercial composting of other organic materials, and they’re effective against the vast majority of bacteria and viruses. Windrow composting (an open-air method) requires that same temperature to be sustained for 15 days with at least five turnings of the material.
The legitimate concern is prion diseases, particularly Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Prions are misfolded proteins that cause fatal neurological conditions and are extraordinarily resistant to heat, chemicals, and decomposition. Most states that have legalized human composting exclude bodies with known prion diseases from the process. But the rarity of these conditions (affecting roughly one in a million people per year) means they function more as a regulatory detail than a genuine public health barrier.
Funeral Industry Resistance
Traditional funeral homes have an economic interest in the status quo. The average conventional burial in the U.S. costs between $7,000 and $12,000 when you include the casket, embalming, vault, and cemetery plot. Cremation is cheaper but still generates revenue through urns, memorial services, and related products. Human composting represents competition, and funeral director associations have lobbied against legalization in multiple states.
Their public arguments tend to focus on dignity and safety rather than economics. In Minnesota’s legislative hearings, the state funeral directors association framed their opposition around “the dignity of the deceased” and public health. But the pattern of opposition from industry groups tracks closely with the financial stakes. States where funeral industry lobbying is weaker have generally moved faster toward legalization.
Zoning and Facility Challenges
Even in states where human composting is legal, opening a facility involves navigating zoning laws that weren’t designed for this kind of operation. Composting facilities typically fall under solid waste processing regulations, which require certification that the site is consistent with local land use restrictions. In practice, this means facilities often can’t operate in residential or commercially zoned urban areas, limiting them to industrial zones or rural locations.
The process itself requires specialized infrastructure. Bodies are placed in vessels with wood chips, alfalfa, and straw, then maintained at controlled temperatures for 30 to 60 days. Bones and teeth don’t fully break down due to their mineral content, so staff use equipment to reduce them to a fine powder that gets mixed back into the finished soil. Non-organic implants like hip replacements or pacemakers are screened out and recycled when possible. All of this requires space, specialized equipment, and trained personnel, which means the barrier to entry is higher than simply passing a state law.
The Environmental Argument Driving Change
The push for legalization is largely fueled by environmental concerns. A single cremation releases about 190 kilograms of carbon dioxide, equivalent to driving roughly 470 miles. Traditional burial has its own footprint: embalming fluid contains formaldehyde, concrete vaults consume resources, and maintained cemetery lawns require ongoing water and chemical inputs. One lifecycle analysis found that when all environmental impact categories are tallied, burial actually has a greater overall environmental footprint than cremation.
Human composting produces about one cubic yard of usable soil per person, sequesters carbon rather than releasing it, and requires significantly less energy than cremation. For the growing number of people who want their death to align with their environmental values, it’s an appealing option. That demand is what’s driving the steady state-by-state expansion of legalization, even against the headwinds of religious objection, industry lobbying, and regulatory inertia.
The trajectory suggests that human composting will continue becoming legal in more states over the coming years. With 15 states currently considering legislation, including Texas, Massachusetts, and Utah, the question for most of the country is less “if” than “when.”