New York has become the last US state to allow composting of human corpses, meaning that a person’s body can now be turned into soil after death, which is considered an ecological alternative to burial and cremation, according to the BBC and News.ro.

This practice, also known as “natural organic recovery,” involves decomposing a corpse within weeks of sealing it in a container.

In 2019, Washington became the first US state to legalize it. Colorado, Oregon, Vermont and California followed suit.

New York is the sixth US jurisdiction to allow human composting after the measure was approved on Saturday by the state’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul.

The process takes place in special ground installations. The corpse is placed in a closed container with selected materials, such as wood shavings, alfalfa and grass straw, and gradually decomposes under the action of microbes. After about a month – and a heating process to eliminate any possible microbial contamination – loved ones receive the resulting soil. It can be used for planting flowers, vegetables or trees.

American company Recompose said that the services they offer can save one ton of carbon compared to cremation or traditional burial.

Carbon dioxide emissions are a major contributor to climate change because they trap the Earth’s heat, a phenomenon known as the greenhouse effect.

Traditional burials, which include a coffin, consume wood, land, and other natural resources.

Proponents of human composting say it’s not only a greener option, but also more practical in cities where land for cemeteries is limited. But others have ethical questions about what happens to the soil produced by composting. New York State’s Catholic bishops would oppose the law, arguing that human bodies should not be treated as “domestic waste.”

Concerns have also been raised about the cost of such a process. But Recompose, whose Seattle factory is one of the first in the world, says its $7,000 (£5,786) fee is “comparable” to competing options.

According to the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA), the average cost of a traditional funeral in the US was $7,848 in 2021, while cremation was $6,971.

Composting corpses is already legal in Sweden, and natural burials, where the body is buried without a coffin or with a decomposing coffin, are allowed in the UK.