Understanding Natural Organic Reduction (Recompose)

Natural organic reduction - human composting - is legal in 14 US states and now under discussion in the New South Wales Parliament. In this session, ACCA CEO Ben Kelly talks to Katrina Spade, the architect who invented the process and went on to found Recompose, the world's first human composting company, which has now cared for more than 700 people.

Katrina walks through exactly what happens inside the vessel, the temperature thresholds and record-keeping that make the resulting soil safe, and the operational and financial realities of running a facility at scale. She also shares what she learned taking an entirely new idea through a state legislature - and what she'd tell operators and regulators encountering it for the first time

What you'll gain:

• The process step by step - plant mix, aeration, screening, curing - and the numbers behind each stage
  
  
• What the safety case actually rests on: pathogens, pharmaceuticals, heavy metals, and the research that settled them
  
  
• Why NOR is hard to run at small scale, and how vessel count drives your pricing
  
  
• How to talk about composting with families, faith leaders and journalists without reaching for euphemism
  
  
• What good regulation looks like - and why cremation rules, not burial rules, are the model to borrow