Composting a human body will become legal 90 days after this year’s Colorado legislative session ends.
Gov. Jared Polis signed SB21-006 on Monday, making Colorado just the second state in the U.S. to allow it as a post-death option. At least four other states are considering similar bills.
Once the law takes effect, funeral homes will be able to offer the chance to turn a person’s body into soil, similar to what Washington state has done. It takes about a month for a body to be broken down into about a pickup truck bed worth of soil.
Colorado’s new law won’t allow for the human remains to be sold or used to grow food for human consumption, but the soil can be spread on public lands, according to bill sponsor Rep. Matt Soper, a Delta Republican.
The bill, which had been on the agenda in 2020 before COVID, passed both chambers of the legislature this year by wide margins.