When I Die, Compost Me! or Lunchtime Q+A: Micah Hartowski, on her new role reinventing the Death Industry
Lunthtime Q+A #3
We celebrated two years of Sunshine + Microbes last week. And now I want to share one of the coolest things to come out of the newsletter — how it helped Jackie’s best friend Micah Hartowski start a new career!
During an issue last October, we wrote about a new company called Recompose that offered an alternative to traditional burials. They convert the human body into soil through a natural decomposition process that’s much better for the environment. Micah read our article, found out Recompose was hiring, and was brought in as their new financial and operations administrator in January.
The human composting process is better known as natural organic reduction or NOR. For now, it’s only legal in three states: Washington, Colorado, and Oregon. Recompose is based in Seattle, although Micah still works near us in sunny Stuart, Fla. We checked in with Micah about her new job, why we need to reimagine burials for the benefit of the environment, and what surprising things she’s learned about innovating in the death industry.
-Matt
The following has been edited for clarity and length. Also these are Micah’s personal thoughts after working for Recompose for seven months, and she is not speaking on behalf of the organization.
1️⃣ Why do we need new ways to dispose of deceased bodies?
Unfortunately, the conventional methods of disposition (embalming + burial or cremation) both have significant detractions and environmental impacts.
The process of embalming relies on known carcinogens and toxic chemicals that we then place into the ground; and that’s not even getting into the health risks to embalmers for handling these materials. Caitlin Doughty (founder of Order of the Good Death / Ask a Mortician) does a great explainer on this process. Chemicals aside, consider the thousands of tons of hardwood, metals, and concrete that we use in the process. We chop down forests for caskets that will be seen for hours at most, and then interred permanently.
Natural burial (where a body isn’t embalmed and is interred in the ground directly, covered by a biodegradable shroud, wicker basket, or simple pine box) is a good sustainable option in that it avoids the use of toxic substances, and uses fewer resources, however any burial takes for granted that there’s an availability of land where a body would lie in perpetuity, ideally undisturbed. It doesn’t take growing up in a family of realtors to realize that selling land in perpetuity is a misguided endeavor, and that it will become a challenge, eventually for someone.
This leads us to cremation as a seemingly solid option; however cremation requires the burning of a large amount of fossil fuels and releases a proportionately large amount of CO2 and particulates into the atmosphere. This is increasingly problematic as cremation is overtaking conventional burial and more families opt for this method.
The environmental costs combined with the constriction of use of land asks us all to consider better alternatives for death care.
2️⃣ Of course one challenge of rethinking burials is tradition. But are there also U.S. laws or perhaps even a funeral lobby (or cartel!) that create hurdles for new methods of taking care of the deceased?
Currently NOR / recomposition is legalized in only three states: Washington, Colorado, and Oregon. There are several other states currently taking up legislation to legalize the process, which is heartening to hear. I don’t think it will be a path without obstacles, but it’s encouraging to see how many people are inspired to introduce legislation to bring this as an option throughout the country.
Anecdotally, I find that the broad majority of people who hear about the work that I do (and this cuts across age/race/religion/socio-economic status) respond with something akin to “wow, that’s what I want.” I think that’s because there’s something profoundly beautiful and unifying in the idea that NOR harnesses and accelerates the natural processes that would happen to your body after death. It’s something that resonates with people once they hear about it.
However, almost any time a new technology or idea is introduced, there’s pushback from stakeholders for a variety of reasons: fear of the novel, entrenchment in old ways, self-interest, etc. The death care industry is very old and very underpinned by tradition. It’s also an area where the regulations vary widely state to state, so we can’t propose one-size-fits-all legislative solutions. There’s not necessarily a funeral “cartel”, however there are a few VERY large corporations that have come to dominate the US in the past couple of decades (but that’s an entirely different interview...) which will be interesting to see how they adapt to this evolution of the industry.
3️⃣ I just died. I choked to death on one of Jackie’s delicious sourdough buckwheat galettes. What happens to my body if I choose recomposition? And why is this better than traditional methods?
I’m very sad you died, but what a way to go. I was tempted to write out a whole thing, but there’s a beautiful graphic on our website that illustrates NOR with a clarity that I won’t be able to improve upon. As to why this is better than traditional methods, not only are you avoiding the negative impacts that I’ve previously mentioned, your body is transformed into a rich and nourishing soil that will foster life and help sequester carbon. In my opinion, not only is it beneficial, it’s incredibly poetic.
4️⃣ Is there a particular fact about burials or the industry of death that most people don’t know that would surprise them?
Hmm, I think it’s that you have options (and I don’t mean just the style of your casket). It’s not a requirement that a body is embalmed; your family doesn’t have to use an urn or container purchased through the funeral home; your family can have an at-home funeral if they’d like.
Because we often avoid contemplating thoughts of death, people come to funeral homes in states of distress and grief; they’re not (nor should they be expected to be) thinking critically about the process. This isn’t to cast funeral homes or funeral directors as bad actors in any way. People who have chosen to care for our dead often feel called to the work they do. They provide a tremendous amount of emotional support and guidance at a critical time. But it’s easy to confuse “this is how we typically do xyz” for “this is how xyz is done (and you can’t do it another way)”.
5️⃣ Well, this is different from our usual Q&As, but we still have to ask the same question we ask everyone: What’s your favorite thing to eat in South Florida?
The mangoes from my parents’ trees; but outside of Jun-Aug, guava pastelitos.
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Sunshine + Microbes team
Jackie Vitale is a cook and kitchen educator based in Stuart, Fla . She runs Otto’s Bread Club and is co-founder of the Florida Ferment Fest. Her newsletter explores the intersection of food, culture, environment and community.
Matt Levin is a communications strategist at the ACLU of Texas. He edits Sunshine + Microbes and contributes other scraps to each issue.