Tucked into a nondescript warehouse development in Howard County, along winding roads lined with semi trucks, sits a facility dedicated to the dead.
It offers a newly legal service, natural organic reduction, to mourning families — and to living customers looking to settle death arrangements before they go.
The 37,000 square foot facility, operated by Earth Funeral, is likely the first of its kind on the East Coast, and it opened in May.
“The exterior belies what’s going on inside,” said Tom Harries, CEO at Earth Funeral, which launched in Washington, and has one facility there and another in Nevada.
Already, 25 bodies have been placed in vessels — along with mulch, wood chips and wildflowers — to undergo the process, which is nicknamed “human composting,” for its close likeness to the process. The end result, after all, is small, cylindrical cardboard canisters filled with soil-like remains.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Christine Condone over at Maryland Matters
