Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation on Saturday that legalizes human composting.
New York is now the sixth state in the nation that has legalized the practice.
The bill was introduced by Democrat State Assembly Member Amy Paulin and Democrat State Sen. Leroy Comrie. It states that “Natural Organic Reduction accelerates the process of biological decomposition in an above-ground container, naturally converting human remains to soil. The method will provide New Yorkers with the option of choosing an environmentally sustainable and cost-effective alternative to burial and cremation. Natural Organic Reduction was legalized in Washington State in 2019 and is currently going through legislative efforts in other states.”
The process takes 60 days and works by placing a person’s remains in a vessel and filling it with a mix of wood chips, alfalfa, and straw.
The New York State Catholic Conference has vehemently opposed the bill.
“Composting is something we as a society associate with a sustainable method of eliminating organic trash that otherwise ends up in landfills. But human bodies are not household waste, and the bishops do not believe that the process meets the standard of reverent treatment of our earthly remains,” Dennis Poust, executive director of the New York State Catholic Conference, told the Catholic Courier.
Article posted with permission from Pamela Geller
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