Maybe you can’t literally be a tree, but you can be the stuff trees go in!

CNN has reported that Washington will become the first state to allow human composting as an alternative to burials or cremations after a person dies. Governor Jay Inslee signed a bill on Tuesday, legalizing human composting. The bill is set to go into effect May 2020.

Katrina Spade, the CEO of a human composting company called Recompose, explained the process of turning a dead body into soil: “The body is covered in natural materials like straw or wood chips, and over the course of about three to seven weeks, thanks to microbial activity, it breaks down into soil.” The deceased’s family members will be able to keep this soil and do as they wish with it.

Spade adds, “And if they don’t want that soil, we’ll partner with local conservation groups around the Puget Sound region so that the soil will be used to nourish the land here in the state.”

The average burial can cost between $8,000 and $25,000. Cremation can top $6,000. Spade wants to charge around $5,500 for human composting. Six people have already donated their bodies to this research, as this process was the focus of a new study at Washington State University.

For environmentalists, human composting is a great alternative to a traditional burial or cremation.