On Wednesday, March 9th, 2022, Return Home CEO Micah Truman hosted an exclusive investor Q&A webinar. This webinar brought up a number of very important questions regarding the Terramation process, and what makes the process so important to not only the death care industry, but the planet as a whole. A complete recording of the webinar is attached above available for you to watch anytime.
At Return Home, our mission is to empower families to make death care decisions that make our world a better place. Using our proprietary Terramation process, we transform human remains into life-giving soil.
We are in full operation! Over the last two years, we’ve worked relentlessly developing our science, technology, and process. We officially launched our facility in June of 2021 and have helped over 40 families since then.
Below are a few questions that were asked by webinar attendees along with the reply given by Return Home CEO, Micah Truman.
How Does Your Process Compare to Cremation, Seeing That It Uses Roughly 10% of The Energy Cremation Uses.
Micah Truman:
“In regard to cremation, you have to create 1,600 degrees of heat, requiring 90 minutes to complete the process. What comes out is what we call a retort. The exhaust from the machine that cremates the body goes straight up into the air as greenhouse gases.
That’s the big challenge with cremation, but it’s actually a bigger challenge when we receive ash from the cremation. Ground bone is not capable of going back into the earth. It’s sort of the equivalent of a bucket of sand.
Our process requires very little energy input.What we are ultimately left with is something that we can give back to the earth. So that’s the big distinction between the two disposition methods.”
Are Worms A Part Of The Terramation Process?
Micah Truman:
Bugs are not used our process. In fact the heat that’s generated doesn’t allow it in our Terramation process.
“It’s a composting rule that we have to take the temperature of our compost above 131 degrees for more than 72 hours. The reason we do that is because it removes all pathogens, seeds, bugs– anything you can think of from the process.
In contrast, you could use earthworms for a somewhat different process using them to create compost. However we’re using a very different, naturally heat-intensive process.”
Can the Terramation Process Break Down Synthetic Chemicals/Hormones in the Body, Such as Chemotherapy Drugs?
Micah Truman:
“Awesome question. Yes. But we do have some limitations. For example, prion diseases like Ebola. That’s a unique situation where there’s a disease in a dead body that can be transmitted to a live one.
It’s actually very hard to transmit disease from a dead body to a live one. However, prion diseases are an exception. You should also know our first 20 descendants, each one of them had their soil tested and submitted to the state.
We also have an ongoing rule that 5% of our descendants’ soil has to continue to get this testing. All of those soil tests have come out clean. So, we’ve seen no issue to date with chemotherapy drugs!”
Transportation Costs of Moving a Body From Surrounding States?
Micah Truman:
“Transportation costs will vary depending on distance. If the body can be driven from a nearby state like Idaho or Oregon the cost is in the hundreds of dollars range.
If a body needs to be flown to us from let’s say New York, I would put it at $2,000. So it could run from anywhere from a few hundred dollars to $2,000.”
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For a deeper dive into our Q&A webinar, we strongly encourage you to watch our recent recap video!
If there are any questions or concerns that we weren’t able to cover, we would love to get in touch with you and get those answered. Please feel free to contact us with any questions.
Our equity crowdfunding raise on StartEngine is far from over, and we need your support! Become an early investor, and become a part of the Return Home community!
