‘Human Composting’ Now Legal In New Jersey

Authored by Jon Fleetwood via substack,

In New Jersey, even the dead are being drafted into the climate agenda.

Governor Phil Murphy (D) signed a bill into law on September 11 legalizing “natural organic reduction,” better known as human composting.

The legislation “[a]llows for natural organic reduction and controlled supervised decomposition of human remains.”

The Garden State is now the 14th state to sanction the controlled decomposition of human bodies into soil.

Proponents of the bill justify the macabre practice because the state is “running out of space.”

“They explained it to me and I was like—OK, the most important takeaway is it gives everybody another dignified avenue to take of their loved one’s remains,” said Hudson County Assemblyman Julio Marenco, who championed the bill.

“In New Jersey, we are one of the biggest markets available to them. And also because we’re so densely populated, a state that is running out of space.”

Governor Murphy’s office said that “by establishing regulated and supervised processes, human remains composting provides New Jersey families a respective and environmentally conscious end-of-life option.”

Turning Bodies Into Dirt

The process is as eerie as it sounds: a human corpse placed in a steel vessel, covered with straw, wood chips, or alfalfa, and sealed inside while warm air circulates.

Over the next 45 to 60 days, the body decomposes into a pile of what promoters call “nutrient-rich soil.”

Families can then choose whether to scatter it like ashes, dump it in a garden, or use it to feed a houseplant.

This isn’t metaphor.

This is literally grinding down the human body until it’s indistinguishable from fertilizer.

‘Green’ Death as Climate Policy

New Jersey’s new law is not just about death care—it’s about politics.

Supporters frame human composting as an “eco-friendly” burial option, claiming it cuts back on carbon emissions, reduces cemetery land use, and avoids embalming chemicals.

New York made this connection explicit when it legalized human composting in 2022, tying it to the state’s carbon elimination goals of cutting emissions by 2050.

The same rationale is spreading nationwide.

Climate activists now argue that decomposing bodies in compost piles is a necessary step in “saving the planet.”

Funeral industry groups have begun marketing it as a guilt-free alternative for families who want to avoid the supposedly destructive footprint of traditional burials or cremation.

A Disturbing Trend

There’s a macabre irony here.

What was once reserved for trash heaps, barnyard animals, and yard waste is now being elevated as a “sustainable” future for human remains.

Death itself is being industrialized under the banner of environmentalism.

Proponents describe it in soothing terms—“gentle transformation,” “nutrient-rich soil,” “life from death.”

But strip away the marketing gloss, and human composting looks less like reverence for the dead and more like commodification of the body.

Religious & Ethical Concerns

Many religious leaders condemn the practice as a degradation of human dignity, incompatible with traditions that view the body as sacred.

Opponents warn that reducing humans to fertilizer treats the body as raw material rather than a vessel worthy of respect in death.

The Archdiocese of Newark released a statement in opposition of the new law:

“The Catholic Church does not support human composting because the practice does not respect the human body in a manner consistent with our faith or reflect our hope in the resurrection,” the statement read.

Yet despite deep ethical objections, the trend is accelerating.

Washington legalized the practice in 2019.

Now, in just six years, 14 states have followed: Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, California, New York, Nevada, Arizona, Delaware, Maryland, Minnesota, Maine, Georgia, and now New Jersey.

Bottom Line

Behind the soft marketing lies something darker: a society that has begun to treat the dead as compost heaps in service to climate ideology.

Whether framed as “eco-friendly,” “cost-saving,” or “gentle,” the reality is that Americans are being conditioned to view human bodies as little more than fertilizer for the green agenda.

In the Garden State, even in death, people are now expected to “go green.”