They turn dead bodies into soil — for a living. Hundreds will descend on Tacoma today
When she was young, Brie Smith discovered what she calls “a knack.” It’s a rather peculiar one, all things considered.
In high school, studying advanced anatomy and physiology, Smith gravitated toward “restorative art.” In layman’s terms, she says she has an innate gift for reconstructing the human body, or as she describes it, “putting people back to their likeness and making them beautiful.”
In some ways, it makes sense. Smith’s mother was a cosmetologist. Her father was a cop who worked late. As a girl, Smith would often go with her mother to the shop in the evening, she recently recalled, entertaining herself while her mom did hair and makeup for clients.
Smith also possessed what she called “a real concept of life and death, at a very young age” — wherever that came from.
When it came to identifying her calling in life? All the signs were there.
It was just a matter of embracing it, Smith told me by phone last week.
“When I figured it out, there’s not a lot of options. You can go into anthropology. You can go in a couple of directions, but I really liked anatomy and physiology,” said Smith, who today serves as the funeral director and chief operating officer at Return Home, the world’s first large-scale terramation facility.
Terramation, for the unfamiliar, is human composting. That’s the preferred term for the process of turning dead bodies into soil. It’s used by those in the industry.
In 2019, Washington became the first U.S. state to legalize the eco-friendly alternative to traditional burial and cremation.
In 2021, Return Home opened for business, operating out of 12,000 square feet of industrial park space near Auburn capable of turning roughly 70 bodies into soil each month.
This week will mark another milestone for the burgeoning sector of post-life planning and altruism: The first-ever human composting conference is coming to the Tacoma Convention Center, Feb. 21-22.
It’s called “TerraCon,” and it promises to bring hundreds of experts and industry professionals to Tacoma.
Like Smith, most have developed a passion for, well …
Turning dead bodies into dirt.
“The mortuary sciences is definitely a field where I feel like I can be helpful to people with the physical portion of what they’re going through — actually taking care of the deceased — and helping families through their grief,” Smith told me.
“Termination appealed to me so much for a couple of reasons,” she added.
“The end product is beautiful.”
Booming business
Return Home started as a wild idea, according to founder and CEO Micah Truman.
Similar to the way Smith describes her gift for the restorative arts, Truman says his skill set revolves around “building companies.”
“That’s what I have done,” Truman said last week, providing the same origin story for Return Home as he did in 2021 when The News Tribune’s Craig Sailor previewed the unique funeral facility’s grand opening.
Basically, Truman wanted to do something big and different, he said. He also has the means and self-confidence to indulge his aspirations.
“At the time, I was trying to figure out how I could build a company that the bigger it was, the better off the world was. Like, really,” he told me.
Naturally, Truman landed on human composting.
Now open for more than two years, Return Home has served nearly 300 families so far, residing in 25 states and three Canadian provinces, Truman said.
The Auburn facility — which relies on large metal boxes to expedite what would occur naturally if a body was buried without a casket — recently expanded to roughly 17,000 square feet, he indicated.
At a price of roughly $5,000, the entire process, including grinding the remaining bones into a fine powder, takes approximately two months.
A 200-pound body will produce 500-600 pounds of soil, Truman previously told The News Tribune. It’s presented to the family in an eco-friendly box at the end.
Business at Return Home has doubled annually since it opened, Truman told The News Tribune. This year, the new-age funeral home is on pace to serve 300 clients, he said.
At the same time, the terramation landscape has changed dramatically.
The appeal is environmental — human composting doesn’t require the burning of bodies or the toxic chemicals involved with embalming — and financial.
As of earlier this year, human composting had been legalized in six states, including Oregon, California and Colorado. More are on the way.
In Germany, Pabo Metz recently opened Europe’s first terramation provider, bringing human composting to a new continent and new market.
Metz is just one of many human composting pioneers set to arrive in Tacoma this week.
According to Truman, who is producing the first annual TerraCon convention through Return Home, attendees and presenters representing Britain, Australia, Japan, Vietnam, Belgium and Canada will be on hand or logged in remotely.
Students from mortuary schools across the country will attend in-person and virtually, Truman said.
“We really are seeing the industry start to expand, and people coming from all over,” Truman said.
“We’ve got people coming from seven different countries, I can’t remember them all. And all of them have the same mindset: We’re going to open this thing, we’re going to spread it, and then it’s game on,” he said.
“This is exciting, and it’s happening in your backyard.”
Tacoma: The epicenter of terramation?
Smith is looking forward to this week’s TerraCon convention, she said.
She cut her teeth in the business doing standard-fare burials and funeral services. But helping families carry out the last wishes of loved ones in an environmentally sustainable and less invasive way has given her career new life.
She’s eager to help spread the human composting gospel and grateful to have the chance to do it right here in Tacoma, joined by folks from across the funeral industry.
There’s something about terramation — or whatever you call it — that just feels right, Smith said.
“When I met Mike, he showed me around this giant warehouse … and he was pointing out where everything was going to go. At the time I was embalming and cremating. That’s my job. His vision of what could be an alternative disposition really resonated with me,” Smith said.
“Cremation is a three-hour process, give or take. It’s very aggressive,” she added.
“This is so passive and gentle and natural, and that aspect of it very much appeals to me.”
Eileen Weresch-Doornink is a believer. Her experience comes from firsthand grief, she said.
Several years ago, the 58-year-old learned about terramation. She discussed it with her husband, she recalled, and later with her son, Fritz, informing him it’s what they wanted after death.
When Fritz, who was born with a birth defect and spent the first five months of his life at the Tacoma General NICU died suddenly in 2022, it’s the method of disposition the family chose.
“During that time, I had five of his friends come to me, separately, and say, ‘I just want to make sure you know about his wishes. He would really want his body to return to the earth,’” Weresch-Doornink said.
“I’ve had so many people tell me, especially as I’ve connected with other parents who’ve lost a child, that they are haunted by this vision of their child’s body, cold, stiff, full of chemicals in the ground, in a box filling up with water when it rains and the ground gets soggy,” she added.
“I don’t have that.”
According to Truman, that’s the whole idea.
The terramation sales pitch is simple: Go out the way you came in, leaving the Earth a little better off for your time.
Return Home was the state’s first terramation funeral provider, but it’s since been joined by competitors — including locally, Truman said.
For the industry to take off the way he believes it can, the more the merrier, Truman indicated.
For his next big swing?
Truman wants to make Tacoma ground zero for human composting.
This week’s TerraCon convention downtown represents the next step, he believes.
“For a series of random reasons, Tacoma is probably going to be the heart of this industry for the next chunk of time. We’re here, and our competitor is nearby,” Truman told The News Tribune.
“This is a disposition method sweeping the country,” he added.
“I think Tacoma is going to be it.”
This story was originally published February 21, 2024 at 5:15 AM.
