Resources

Yes, you can donate your organs and choose human composting.

Organ donation is only possible if someone dies in a hospital because they need specific equipment to keep the organs viable until the donation company arrives. Medical professionals remove organs within a few days after someone dies.

Our Services team will coordinate transportation to Recompose with the hospital. If you live outside Washington State, the local funeral home you’re working with will coordinate with the hospital.

Alternatively, full-body donations to medical schools and research projects usually embalm bodies to extend the time they can be studied. Embalmed bodies cannot undergo human composting. Some programs freeze the donor for non-embalmed use. So we encourage you to contact the donation program to understand their process and whether it is possible to donate your full body without embalming.

Yes, Recompose offers human composting to clients across the US. We serve families nationwide by coordinating transportation through our trusted partners or a local funeral home of your choosing, ensuring your person is safely brought into our care. Our team has extensive experience guiding families through every step of the process.

It is possible for families to transport their person to Recompose in a personal vehicle with the appropriate permits. If you are interested in this option or have any questions, please contact our team at (206) 800-8733 or precompose@recompose.life.

Our can learn more in our article, How to Arrange for Transport to Recompose.

Yes, Recompose is a fully licensed funeral home as well as a licensed natural organic reduction facility located in Seattle, Washington. Our team includes licensed Funeral Directors and Embalmers, as well as certified Natural Organic Reduction Operators. Recompose also holds a license to sell preneed arrangements.

We are regulated by the WA State Department of Licensing Funeral Board, the WA State Board of Health, and the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency.

The Recompose human composting process creates approximately one cubic yard of soil per body which is roughly 3 x 3 x 3 feet. This amount fills the bed of most pickup trucks and weighs about 1,000 pounds. The process begins with three cubic yards of plant material.

Families can take some or all of the soil home once the process is complete, and donate what does not go home to conservation efforts. Learn more about how to consider your soil options.

Many Recompose clients choose to donate some soil to the Land Program and take a portion to share with friends and family to use on gardens, on house plants, and scatter across favorite places.

Through the Recompose Land Program, we partner with nonprofit organizations to protect and regenerate ecosystems through conservation, rewilding, and other restoration practices. These Land Partners receive soil donated from Recompose clients to use in projects that benefit the land they steward.

Our Land Partners focus on ecologically significant areas across diverse, protected landscapes like forests, prairie grasslands, and wetland areas. Some of the many species that are supported through soil donation include:

• Elk
• Beaver
• River otter
• Black-tailed deer
• Juvenile salmonids

Recompose is proud to support this work to allow nature to flourish again. 

Clients who choose to donate soil through the Land Program have shared that they connect with the concept of returning to the natural environment as a whole rather than to a single location—instead of becoming a tree, they become part of the forest.

Recompose and our Land Partners share a common interest in connecting the human experience with the natural environment, and recognize the use of soil from human composting as a way to strengthen this connection.