Recompose, the first human-composting funeral home in the U.S., is now open for business
The Recompose process takes 30 days in a vessel full of wood chips and straw, then another few weeks in “curing bins,” large boxes (one per person) where soil is allowed to rest and continue exhaling carbon dioxide. Once that process is complete, friends and chosen family can either retrieve the soil themselves, or donate it to an ecological restoration project at Bells Mountain near Vancouver, Washington. So far, most have elected to donate.
Each vessel, Spade explained, is carefully monitored for temperature and moisture content — sensors take temperature readings every 10 minutes — to make sure the microbes inside are getting what they need for safe, efficient composting. Each vessel is slowly rotated a few times during the process. (All compost needs turning.) State regulations say the soil must maintain a temperature of 131 degrees Fahrenheit for 72 hours to safely cook away pathogens like fecal coliform and salmonella. The state also requires Recompose — and a third party — to test for those pathogens in the resulting soil, as well as heavy metals, including arsenic, lead and mercury. (The state also prohibits people who have contracted certain diseases — tuberculosis, prion infections like Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease — from undergoing NOR.)
“This is a very controlled process, completely driven by microbes,” Spade said. “It’s fueled by plant material and monitored in a very rigorous way.”
Oxygen is another necessary ingredient. Air is blown into each vessel through one set of tubes while exhaust is released through another set, passing through carbon-activated filters.
“As I’ve learned more about Recompose, I’ve found it to be a very graceful and beautiful way to go,” Bontrager said. “It’s the natural way, the way every living thing in history has eventually been cared for, from an apple core to a human — you’re not being burned up, not being pumped full of embalming chemicals and taking up space in a container. It seems like a peaceful way for the body to move on to the next phase.”
