Going green — after death

The ritual of bidding farewell to our deceased loved ones is an important step in the mourning process. Most of us are familiar with traditional casket burials and cremation. Now, there is a third option: natural organic reduction, or human composting.On May 21st, Washington became the first state to legalize this form of death care.Katrina Spade, chief executive officer of Recompose, a company that helps people compost their loved ones into fertile soil, says she based her idea on a livestock mortality composting method that farmers in the US have been using for decades.Related: Medical or funeral insurance? More Zimbabweans choose the latter.“I found out about livestock mortality composting back when I was a grad student in architecture school. ... It had never been done for humans before, but it seemed really like a great option. So, I started to investigate what it would mean to take that agricultural process and make it feel meaningful and appropriate for humans.”Katrina Spade, ch