(ambient music) - The idea of becoming soil does grab people's imagination in a way that is different than being cremated and turning into ash.

I mean, I think it has to do with the fact that we can grow new life after we've died, very literally.

(ambient music) I know that my molecules and atoms will be rearranged and actually incorporated into nature, into the forest, into the neighborhood garden, wherever my family chooses to place me when I die.

But there's something really just kind of magical about that, truly becoming that nature, eventually.

(ambient music) (pensive music) I was in graduate school for architecture, and a couple of things happened, I guess, to make me feel mortal.

One, I had turned 30.

The second thing that happened is I had two young children, and one of them was at that stage where I could see him growing on a daily basis, like he was... Every morning, I'd be like, "Look at you, you've grown another day."

And I realized that I was growing at the same rate, even though it wasn't quite as noticeable on a day-to-day basis.

I just started to feel a little bit more mortal than I had in the past.

I started to think about what would happen to my body when I died.

The two main options in the US are cremation and conventional burial.

I don't really want either of those.

(ambient music) I'm the founder and CEO of Recompose, which is a company that composts humans after they die.

We're a full service funeral home.

(ambient music) Here we are in the Recompose Greenhouse.

We named it that because it's a place where things get their start.

We have 34 commissioned vessels on site and about 22 people inhabiting those vessels.

(pensive music) Some people hear compost and they think, "Well, if you bury someone directly in the ground, that's composting," but actually they're quite different.

So we use wood chips, alfalfa, and straw, and then the body lays on top of a bed of that material and we place more of that plant material on top of the body.

Oxygen is critical, so there's a constant pull of air through the vessel.

The microbial activity during human composting creates a great deal of heat.

Our team rotates our vessels about once a week to ensure that all of the material inside is mixed and the air can reach all of the microbial activity.

Everyone who completes the Recompose process creates a cubic yard of soil.

I'm in awe of the way the natural cycles work, what regeneration means.

And especially in this moment with climate change, things are so fraught.

I take great solace in the idea that no matter what happens with humans, the natural cycles will keep going.

(gentle music) (pensive music) Human composting takes 1/8 of the energy of cremation.

So with cremation, you're burning fossil gas and emitting mercury, particulates, and carbon into the atmosphere.

And then with conventional burial, when you are manufacturing and transporting the casket, and the grave liner, and the headstone, and then upkeep of that cemetery forever.

Both of those have a significant environmental impact, and interestingly, they have very similar carbon footprints.

When you combine the avoidance of emissions and the sequestration of carbon, you get about a metric ton saved per person who chooses to be composted versus cremated or buried.

That number, a metric ton.

I think it's meaningful.

We are not gonna solve climate change with our death care practices, but it is definitely a like a tool in the toolbox.

(ambient music) One of my favorite stories is when this person died and his sister came to Recompose and got the whole amount of soil.

And he was an avid gardener.

All the neighbors came with their five-gallon buckets and got some of his soil and brought it back to their gardens.

That person is continuing to be part of the neighborhood where he lived.

(ambient music) Though we have two memorial trees here, Hobi was my brother-in-law, and he died about eight years ago, and he was, oh, God, wonderful person.

We miss him very much and... Having this tree here, you know, it's just nice to think about him a little extra whenever you see it, I think of him.

(pensive music) Knowing that you're part of something grand, something larger than yourself, and then the literal nature of getting to turn into something else and then getting that soil to then go... You know, atoms and molecules being picked up by that tree and turning into part of the forest, I think it's really profound.

(ambient music)