by Nathalie Graham • Apr 15, 2021 at 1:55 pm
Return Home CEO Micah Truman opening up a bag of terramated compost. Nathalie Graham
When I arrived at the nondescript warehouse in Auburn, a team of construction workers was transforming the wide, empty space into a way station between this life and the next. This place was Return Home, the world s second-ever human composting facility. Once Return Home opens later this month, it will also be the largest.
In 2019, Gov. Jay Inslee greenlit legislation to allow people a third after-death option for their bodies. Instead of settling for being interred in a box or becoming charred dust in the wind, Washingtonians can now opt to be terramated. That is, they can pack their corpses into sci-fi-like vessels filled to the brim with organic materials, and through a sped-up decomposition process become a truckload of fresh, tillable compost.