A bill coming in 2020 would let Coloradans have their bodies composted and turned into soil after they die instead of being cremated or buried.

Rep. Brianna Titone, D-Arvada, and Sen. Robert Rodriguez, D-Denver, are introducing the option for “natural organic reduction” after death. The method, modeled after what’s done on farms for livestock, is considered more environmentally sustainable and less expensive than other options — it could cost about $5,500. Titone said it will also provide more business opportunities for Colorado businesses.

If approved, Colorado would be just the second state to allow the method. There is no timeline on when it could start, but funeral homes can try a few vessels from a licensed business and see if people are interested in the option.

“In my work helping people put their funeral or memorial service plans in place long before they’re needed, I find that the aversion to talking about death really leads people to have a lot of misunderstanding about kinds of disposition,” said Jamie Sarche, director of pre-planning at Feldman Mortuary in Denver.

Here’s how the process works: A person’s body is placed in a vessel with wood chips, alfalfa and straw, and then microbes decompose the body and bones over 30 days into nutrient-rich soil that families can take home or donate. The metal and non-organics found in a person’s body are screened out.

It’s better for the environment than burial, which leads to chemicals leaching into the ground and takes up more space, and cremation, which uses fossil fuels and releases carbon-monoxide.

Rep. Brianna Titone & Sen. Robert Rodriguez are at Feldman Mortuary introducing “new death care option” bill: turning bodies after death into soil. Natural organic reduction is an alternative to burial and cremation that supporters say is more environmentally-conscious. pic.twitter.com/m5f1T4zy8s — Saja Hindi (@BySajaHindi) December 16, 2019

“It sounds like a safe, environmentally conscious way to give people choice for a different option in something that’s not really a new technology,” Rodriguez said.

The lawmakers said people they’ve talked to about the possibility have been interested in finding out more about it.

People often say they want to be cremated because they don’t want to take up space and want to feed the earth, but they don’t understand that cremation is a “brutal process and it has a tremendously negative environmental impact,” Sarche said.

An Arvada company, Sustainable Funeral, recently began offering another option, called alkaline hydrolysis or water cremation, that uses chemicals to speed up the decomposition of a body. The Colorado Legislature passed a bill in 2011 that made “chemical methods” an acceptable form of body disposition in the state. If Titone and Rodriguez’s bill passes, it will add natural organic reduction to the list.

The bill’s sponsors partnered with Recompose, which is expected to be the world’s first company to offer the death option in 2021. Washington was the first state to approve the method in May, and Colorado will be the second state to consider it, said Katrina Spade, founder and CEO of the company. In Washington state, six people donated their bodies for a study to show how the process works.

Washington State University conducted a study in 2018 declaring it safe and effective.

“In this way, we’re able to leave a real legacy for future generations, one that supports both humans and the local environment,” Spade said.

The Catholic Church opposed the bill in Washington because officials wanted more time to review it, she said.