The new law was scheduled to take effect on May 1, 2020, a date by which Spade planned to have her stunning flagship recomposition facility ready to accept its first official clients. Unfortunately, according to the Seattle Times, Recompose took a “one-two punch” in March as a shaky stock market “spooked investors” and construction costs for the 18,500 square-foot facility skyrocketed. Slade and her team pivoted and began preparing a smaller location for a November 2020 opening.

Enter the competition

Perhaps it was inevitable that Spade’s herculean efforts would pave the way for her own competitors to emerge. 

Micah Truman met Spade when she pitched the idea of human composting at a venture philanthropy session in 2016. Recalling this introduction, Truman told the Seattle Times he was “incredibly taken” by Spade’s presentation. The potential for growth in this new industry and its 2019 legalization led Truman to launch Return Home, a human composting venture slated to open in April 2021 with space for 65 “vessels,” or composting spaces.

A second competitor has already opened for business. Herland Forest National Burial Cemetery, a nonprofit natural burial cemetery in Klickitat County, Washington, received its NOR license in July. The cemetery is part of an intentional community whose residents manage it along with the 126 acres of forest in which they reside. Herland has only built one vessel, but plans to use the funds from the first sale to fund others.

The same, but different

Although Recompose, Return Home, and Herland Forest offer the same end result — recomposition — their motivation, goals, and services vary. 

According to Walt Patrick, who lives in the Herland Forest community, the cemetery was created partly for the community’s residents, although they also accept outside clients.  “We put a lot of heart and love into this land and we don’t want to leave,” he told the Times. “Our goal is to join with our land until death brings us together forever.”  

Truman makes no bones about his vision for Return Home. He hopes to expand throughout the state of Washington and beyond, as both California and Colorado have proposed NOR legislation.

“I’m a finance guy, not a funeral guy,” said Truman, who spent 20 years in China working in advertising, media, and real estate before returning to the U.S. in 2014. “I think Katrina and I are going to serve different markets. Katrina very much wants to serve, to revisualize how death-care is done: beautiful space, amazing aura, empathetic people who will take you by the hand and run you through it. When I think about my company, all I need is scientists and engineers — we’re a technology play. That’s all we are.”

Pricing not “apples-to-apples”

Spade’s scaled-down Recompose will open with 10 composting vessels instead of the originally-planned 32. Unlike Return Home or Herland Forest, Recompose will be a funeral home, offering body pickup, a (now virtual) memorial service, and the NOR process for $5,500. 

Return Home will charge $3,800 for a “basic NOR” plus a transportation fee, and Truman is quick to point out the lower fees. However, Nora Menkin, executive director of the nonprofit co-op funeral home and deathcare watchdog group People’s Memorial Association, believes the differences in pricing deserves proper explanation.

“It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison,” Menkin told the Times. “The Recompose price also includes the funeral home costs, from the place of death through the process.” 

Truman plans to partner with funeral homes for actual transportation and other services, like filing paperwork. Herland Forest plans to charge $3,000 for NOR, but like Return Home, is not serving as a funeral home.

Recomposition review

The process of recomposition involves placing remains into carbon-rich material, like sawdust or wood chips, adding moisture or extra nitrogen, and allowing bacteria and the enzymes they release to break down the tissue over time–usually about a few months. Each body, when combined with the sawdust and woodchips, would produce enough compost to fill a three-foot cube, some of which could be gathered by family members to use to plant a tree or nurture a garden.

In pitching the service to Washington funeral directors, Truman has found that younger directors are more receptive to the idea, while many older directors simply aren’t interested — yet.

“We want to make a third means of disposition,” Micah Truman, founder and CEO of Return Home, said of his company. “It will take a lot of work to be recognized that we’re not cute, not a boutique, not ‘fun,’ not an alternative for Vice magazine to write up with a cute lede about people mulching themselves. This has to be seen as a viable alternative instead of a bunch of weirdos doing weird things.”

Spade’s still cool

As for Spade, she’s staying cool, calm, and collected about the competition, focusing instead on Recompose and the fruition of a mission seven years in the making.

“I believe we desperately need change in the way we care for bodies, physically and emotionally,” she told the Times. “So there should be a lot of people out there doing this. Do I have to love them all? No. But it’s not surprising to see competitors finally arrive.”

The post “Third Means of Disposition:” Spade’s Recompose Has First Two Competitors appeared first on Connecting Directors.

We reported on the popularization of recomposition in December 2018:

[Katrina] Spade’s effort, first known as the Urban Death Project, gained momentum with a 2015 Kickstarter campaign that raised $91,378–well over the project’s $75,000 goal. Since then, the Recompose mission has gained momentum, and Spade has shared her vision with millions of Americans through features in Forbesmagazine, Wired, and The New York Times. She’s also gained valuable support from Washington senator Jamie Pederson, who has introduced a bill to legalize recomposition[…]” Read the full article here. 

How does it work?

Katrina Spade hopes to be the first to offer recomposition services in Washington and is the leading voice for the new technology. “(The) body is covered in natural materials, like straw or wood chips,” Spade explains, “and over the course of about three to seven weeks, thanks to microbial activity, it breaks down into soil.

What happens to the composted human soil?

According to Spade’s vision, families will be provided with a place to vist their passed loved ones at the recomposition facility over the 3-7 week composting period. There are 2 main options for where the human soil goes when the process is complete. First, the family has the option of taking the soil home, much like how we treat cremated remains. The second option is the family can donate the soil to conservation groups used to nourish the land and offer a positive impact on the environment.

How much will it cost?

Spade says a family who chooses recomposition can expect to pay about $5,500.

Do you think your families will choose recomposition? Let us know in the comments! 

The post Washington Funeral Homes Prepare to Offer Recomposition Disposition in Spring 2019 appeared first on Connecting Directors.

Another explanation for this shift is an increasing concern for the environmental impact of burial. Critics cite the toxicity of embalming chemicals and staggering amounts of wood, metal, and concrete as well as the excessive use of land and water to properly maintain burial grounds.

Recently, environmentalists have also begun to question the eco-friendliness of cremation. They argue that cremation still causes millions of pounds of carbon dioxide to be released into the atmosphere, even despite recent efforts to minimize emissions. This concern has given rise to the idea of alkaline hydrolysis, or “green cremation,” which is now legal in 14 states and completely eliminates hazardous emissions.

A Third Alternative

Katrina Spade firmly believes that there is yet another viable, ecological alternative to burial and cremation: recomposition. In fact, she’s closer than ever to bringing to fruition her dream of offering families the option of natural decomposition–turning bodies into dark, nutrient-rich soil that can in return nourish new life.

Spade is the founder and CEO of Recompose, a Washington-based endeavor that hopes to construct the first facility dedicated to human composting in Seattle. Utilizing her degree in architecture, Spade has designed a three-story vault that incorporates the decomposition process with the rituals of final disposition.

Recomposition involves placing remains into carbon-rich material, like sawdust or wood chips, adding moisture or extra nitrogen, and allowing bacteria and the enzymes they release to break down the tissue over time–usually about a few months. Each body, when combined with the sawdust and woodchips, would produce enough compost to fill a three-foot cube, some of which could be gathered by family members to use to plant a tree or nurture a garden.

Thanks to several individuals who donated their bodies to further Spade’s team’s research, Recompose’s model has been tested at Washington State University and has been proven effective, safe, and clean.

Is recomposition legal?

Although composting has been used for hundreds of years as a means of disposal for agricultural animals, Spade is the first to come up with a plan for a functional facility and to enlist a community to push for legalization of this method as an option for humans.

Spade’s effort, first known as the Urban Death Project, gained momentum with a 2015 Kickstarter campaign that raised $91,378–well over the project’s $75,000 goal. Since then, the Recompose mission has gained momentum, and Spade has shared her vision with millions of Americans through features in Forbes magazine, Wired, and The New York Times. She’s also gained valuable support from Washington senator Jamie Pederson, who has introduced a bill to legalize recomposition, as well as alkaline hydrolysis, as alternatives to traditional cremation and burial in the state.

Other eco-friendly deathcare practices

Human composting and green cremation are among a tidal wave of environmentally-friendly options appearing in the death care industry. More and more funeral homes are now offering “green” funeral packages, eschewing embalming, metal caskets, and concrete vaults for burial in a designated “natural” area of a cemetery. Bodies are placed into the ground encased in a shroud or laid inside a cardboard, wooden, or woven casket lined with unbleached fabric or natural bedding like wool, straw, or cotton fiber. Urns are also evolving in eco-friendliness. Models made of wood, rock salt, sand, paper, or fiber are designed to biodegrade over time or dissolve in water. One day you may even be able to opt for burial in a biodegradable pod that nourishes a sapling into a tree as your body decomposes.

A return to simpler funerals and burials is not only an eco-friendly trend–it’s also economical. In fact, Katrina Spade estimates that each human composting could cost as little as $2,500. And anyone can select from a wide variety of biodegradable urns on Amazon for a couple hundred bucks or less (you’ll find them in the “home & kitchen” section).

What does this mean for the death care industry? The NFDA recommends adopting green practices and stocking green products to meet the needs and changing preferences of the families you serve. As Recompose’s website shares, “everyone deserves a choice when it comes to the end of life.”

Article by Connecting Directors contributor Patricia Hartley

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