Should We Compost Human Bodies?

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Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman, and you're listening to Science Versus
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from Gimlet. All right. So we're going to find the bodies,
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is that right?
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Yes.
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I'm driving through the outer suburbs of Seattle with my editor,
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Blythe Terrell.
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Do-do-do-do-do.
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Blythe's been working on Science Versus for about five years,
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and yet still can't quite remember the theme song.
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Do-do-do-do-do. Do-do-do-do-do-do.
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Where we're driving, there's boarded up houses and wire fences.
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I guess it's like one degree off a spooky suburb,
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I think. If just one ghost walked past, I'd be like,
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this is scary.
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Yeah, I think that checks out.
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And this suburb, with its almost haunted houses, gave way
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to an industrial park, which is where we're headed, to
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look for one very specific warehouse.
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Where is it?
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Then the destination is on your right.
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On our right.
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And then we see it. Okay, here it is. This
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nondescript grey building. And inside it, people are doing something
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that some find very controversial. And maybe even a little creepy.
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Hello, Luke.
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We're welcomed by a very friendly fellow with wire-rimmed glasses,
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an office shirt and a flannel vest that feels like
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he's ready for a tech conference. His name is Micah
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Truman and he shows us around. It's this huge, echoey,
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industrial-looking space.
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Yeah, we're not playing wind in your wings here.
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There's large machines whirring in the background and all this
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farm stuff, like piles of straw and alfalfa. And they
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are going to go inside these containers that we see,
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which are about the size of a big fridge lying
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on its side.
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Yeah, the vessels are here.
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So what is it made of?
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It's made of a polycarbonate.
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It's a polycarbonate that is both incredibly insulating and incredibly strong.
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There's a rack of these vessels behind us, stacked three
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high and about a dozen across. So picture a warehouse
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just full of these vessels. Oh, wow. And what's inside
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these vessels isn't just stuff like straw and alfalfa. For
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what's happening here to work, we're going to need one
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very key ingredient.
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Your body would rest up to about here.
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Oh, that's right. Your body. Well, we're going to need
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a dead human body. Because inside these big vessels... There
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are people in them. What's happening here? They're composting human bodies.
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You know, like that thing that people do with leftover
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scraps at dinner? But this time, they're doing it with us.
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Turning bodies into soil. And this whole process, it takes
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only a couple of months to get a full human
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body into tiny flecks of dirt. At this human composting facility,
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all of this was super intriguing. Like Micah showed me
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this spot on a composting vessel. It was a vent
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on the top of the box about the size of
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my fist. And he gave me a simple suggestion.
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Put your hand here.
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Oh, it's hot.
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This is the body transforming into soil.
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And it's magic.
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It's an absolute miracle.
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It's crazy. When you feel that heat, what are you
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thinking about?
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Oh my gosh, safe journey to you.
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I think of it like you're.
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Transforming into a new thing, almost butterfly-esque. I'm like, go, go, go.
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Go make your transformation.
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So this is what we're digging into today. Human composting.
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Why are we doing this? What exactly is going on
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in that hot vessel? And what happens when cold, hard
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science collides with our very complex feelings around death?
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When they walk out with the compost, what is it?
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Is it still, to you, a human remains?
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Completely different. It's not a person. It's not at all.
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Composting Humans is coming up just after the break. Welcome back. Today,
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we're sticking our science versus shovels into this wild idea,
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human composting. And the reason that this is kicking off
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now is because it's part of this big push for
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us to deal with our dead in ways that are
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better for the environment and better for all of us.
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It's sometimes called the Green Death Movement. And we got
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to talking about all this with Brie Smith. Hello, hello, hello.
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How loud do you talk?
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I talk this loud.
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Talk, talk, talk, talk.
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who' s worked in the funeral industry for more than a decade.
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I do feel like you're quite measured.
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I think that's a trick of the trade, is to
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be even-keeled.
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But Bree has been around dead bodies her whole life.
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Her mum was a make-up artist who was sometimes called
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to do prep for funerals. So she'd go down to
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the local morgue and put make-up on the dead. And
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little Bree would tag along, see what mum was up to.
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And I remember her curling old lady hair. I just
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like have distinct memories of her with like little tiny
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curling irons and I just saw her take them from
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looking dead to looking a lot less dead and it
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was so beautiful.
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Brie grew up to be a funeral director which meant
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she was now dealing with dead bodies all day every
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day at work. And she told us that there are
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some definite downsides to how we typically handle them. Like
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Take cremation, which is super common in the US. Blythe
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asked her about it.
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How many people do you think you've cremated?
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Thousands, probably.
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I mean, at least over a thousand, yeah. I really
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don't like cremation. I would do anything to any of
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my loved ones besides that.
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One of the reasons that Brie doesn't like it is
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because cremation isn't good for the planet. When we burn bodies,
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the carbon inside us goes up into the air. It's
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estimated that in the U.S., cremation emits about a billion
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pounds of CO2 each year. Metals in our body, like
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mercury tooth fillings, they also go up in smoke.
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Sometimes I would be cremating and black smoke would start
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coming out of the fluke. So I felt very uncomfortable.
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And then there's embalming, which Americans often do to bodies
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before burying them. Embalming involves injecting formaldehyde into a corpse
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to preserve it. But formaldehyde can be dangerous. It's classified
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as a carcinogen. And embalmers are at a higher risk
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of some cancers, like leukemia and pancreatic cancer, compared to
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the rest of the population. And Brie, she inhaled this
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stuff for years.
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When you embalm formaldehyde, vapors will come up and.
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I would walk out of the prep room and my
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nose hairs would be stiff from like.
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Oh my God. Yeah.
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I mean, and that is actually.
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The embalming fluid.
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Went up into your nose.
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It was like in your nose and you would go
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home and you'd be like, it'd be dinner time and
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you could still kind of smell the embalming fluid.
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So a lot of what we're doing now to our
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dead bodies, it isn't great. Enter greener, and less chemical-y options.
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Because you see, more and more people are wanting things
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like a natural burial, which is where you get buried
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often in a graveyard, but without chemicals, which is something
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that's always been common in some cultures. And it is
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a good idea, particularly if you're worried about the environment.
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But what makes people excited about human composting is that
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instead of taking perhaps years for a body to decompose,
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This could be done in just a few months. And
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then you could take that soil, which is full of
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nutrients from our body, and use it wherever you like,
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to grow a garden or restore degraded land. When Bree
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started really thinking about human composting, she was excited. And
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she ended up joining Micah's team, who we met at
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the start of the show.
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Every little bit of scientist inside of me was enthralled
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with that entire process. You know, trying to figure out
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how to.
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This takes us to our next question. How does it happen?
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How do you turn a stiff into soil in just
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a couple of months? Well, the brains behind this whole
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human composting push is Katrina Spade. So Blythe and I
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met Katrina at a park in Seattle.
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Hello, Ducky.
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Where we found out the details of how we are
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composting humans.
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Hello. Hello.
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Thank you.
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We found a cozy little spot to sit in.
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Is that a dead rat?
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Got to chatting. So about a decade ago, Katrina, who's
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trained as an architect, started thinking about what she's going
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to do with her body when she eventually dies. And
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she started looking into those options of burial and cremation
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and was like.
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This stuff hasn't changed in, like, 100 years. Why?
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Why?
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Is this the best we can do?
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And she keeps thinking about it, talking to her friends
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about it, including one mate who was into composting.
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And she asked me if I'd heard of the fact
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that farmers compost whole cows. And I will say that
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it was kind of like a light bulb, because if
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you can compost a cow, you can probably compost a
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human being.
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Yeah, some farmers compost animals like pigs, cows and chickens.
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This happens for a few reasons, like sometimes if the
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animal is sick and can't be eaten. And this was
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Katrina's jumping off point. She was like, if we know
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that we can do this for farm animals, how do
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we do it for human animals? Katrina starts reading into
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it and she finds out that the science of all
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this is actually pretty fun. So to start with, the
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real heroes of composting are microbes.
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The microbes come from the air and they're on us
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right now as we speak and they're on the dead people.
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I talked to Micah Truman about this too.
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It's gorgeous, right?
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And so these microbes kick in and they begin the
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transformation process. They love heat and moisture and oxygen.
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These teeny tiny microbes, mostly bacteria, but also other stuff
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like fungi, basically get unleashed after we die, oozing out
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chemicals that break down organic stuff, like a dead cow
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or a corpse. Then what comes out the other side
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is soil. But to do their jobs, microbes need just
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the right environment. Like what Micah said, they love heat,
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moisture and oxygen. That oxygen encourages the right kind of
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microbes to thrive so that you really get the compost
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going What we also are going to need here is
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the right balance of carbon and nitrogen. Humans, horses and pigs, well,
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we're all nitrogen rich. So to get a good compost,
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you need to add stuff with a bunch of carbon
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in it. Think wood chips, alfalfa or straw. So Katrina's
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reading all this and she's like, huh, we could totally
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do this with people.
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There was no question if we could make a human
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body compost, right? There's no question. I'm not kidding when
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I say if you can compost a cow, you can
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compost a human.
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But now, Katrina had to figure out exactly how she
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was going to make this work in people. Because when
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farmers compost a bunch of, say, chickens, they can just
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pile them on top of each other with some wood
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chips or whatnot. And at first, Katrina was like, maybe
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we could do something like that.
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Well, early on, I had a vision in architecture school
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for a large collective core composter. It was a big
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building in which all the bodies would go together.
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But Katrina thought about it a touch more and was like, well,
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humans are sentimental creatures. We like to respect our dead.
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If you're saying, like, we're going to make a giant
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building where you put all the bodies together, it starts
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to sound kind of scary. That's gross.
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No.
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But if you're like, you, when you die, you will
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be laid to rest in this one vessel. Consider it
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a hotel for the dead. It's just for you. And
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your body will stay there for about 30 days with us.
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And then you'll be soil.
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That's a much better pitch. Katrina decided to try it out.
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She joined forces with a team of nerds at Washington
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State University to help her iron out the details. And together,
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they concocted a mix of alfalfa, straw and wood chips
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to tuck around people's bodies in individual vessels. And in 2018,
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they started a pilot study to test this all out
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in humans. So now they just needed some humans willing
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to be guinea pigs for all this. The first people
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to boldly go into their hotel for the dead and
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be composted. And it turned out, finding them wasn't too hard.
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Look at this lady.
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She was so great. Oh, can you describe what we're
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looking at?
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Yeah, this is a picture of Darby sitting in her
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living room in her wheelchair. On the side of the
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wheelchair is a bumper sticker that says, War is the
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real enemy. And she's smiling very broadly.
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Darby was 93 when she died. And towards the end
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of her life, she read about Katrina's work from an
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article in the paper. And she loved the idea.
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It was perfect for her to be one of the first. She,
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in fact, would call me on the phone and she'd
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be like, why is it taking you so long? This
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was obviously before she died. And at one point I
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was like, you know, Darby, I know that you mean well,
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but I'm working really hard. Like I'm doing my best here.
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So if you could just be a little gentler.
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Darby joined Katrina's pilot study. She became one of six
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people who donated their bodies for it. They were all
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placed in these big cylinders that were black and plastic.
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And to balance out Darby's nitrogen-rich body, they carefully added
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in that mix of carbony stuff.
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We had laid a bed of alfalfa, straw and wood
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chips into this vessel and then... placed her body onto
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it with some you know a couple of us adults
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because a body can be hard to maneuver and laid
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her on this bed and then then we covered her
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with more of the same i think at that point
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we were using pitchforks really farm-esque you know and so
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covered her with more and then finally covered her face
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and then and that was it and kind of um
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i know i did read a poem Life should not
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be a journey to the grave with the intention of
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arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather
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to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly
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used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, wow, what
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a ride. On the day when we actually laid her
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body into a vessel, this is going to sound so cheesy,
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there was a double rainbow. I was like, of course, Darby,
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of course.
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Over the coming weeks, the researchers in the study carefully
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managed the compost vessels, adding air so it had enough oxygen,
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making sure the moisture levels and the temperature was just right,
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and then regularly rotating them to mix it all up.
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After over a month, Katrina came back to see Darby.
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And where there had been a body and a bunch
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of alfalfa straw and wood chips... Now there was mostly dirt.
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Katrina grabbed a handful.
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It just was a really nice way to complete her journey.
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But yeah, I mean, it was really powerful to see
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that it worked.
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It wasn't just soil in these bins. Even seven weeks
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into the process, there were some large bone fragments. Our
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bones are tougher for microbes to break down than our fleshier,
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gooier bits. Katrina decided that in the future, she could
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break the bones down using a similar machine to what
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crematories use and then return them to the vessel so
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that the microbes could have another go at them. Overall,
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Katrina was feeling pretty good about all this.
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Do you think that you were the first people to
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kind of intentionally compost a human body in this way?
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I think so. How does that feel? It's really, it's really,
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it's so satisfying. It feels amazing. Yeah, it's really kind
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of moving to me.
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So, everything seems to be going to plan. Except that
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somewhere in the midst of all this sciencing, Katrina ran
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into a bit of a snag. She got an email
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from a law professor telling her, I like what you're.
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Trying to do, but you should know it's totally illegal.
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Damn it.
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Unsurprisingly, states in the U.S. have very strict rules about
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the things you can and can't do with a dead body.
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And at the time, you couldn't compost one. So Katrina
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headed to the capital of Washington state to try to
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change that. And she brought along some props.
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A little baggie of cow compost.
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Like a party favor.
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Like a party favor. It was really cute. And then
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we would bring them to Olympia and then kind of
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walk the halls. And any legislator who wanted could have
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a little box of this stuff and take a look
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at it. And some would say like, thanks, but no thanks.
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And then some people would be like, can I smell it?
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And I'm like, of course you can smell it. It
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smells great. Like soil.
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As a side note, That earthy smell is called geosmin,
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and rather wonderfully, it's made by some happy microbes that
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are in the compost pile, releasing little baby spores into
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the soil. That's what makes soil smell so nice. And so,
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just a few years ago, in 2019, Katrina watched as.
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Her own little baby human composting became legal in Washington.
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The day that the governor signed the bill I had
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my kids in little suits I was in a suit
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my girlfriend was there with me And we're standing, like
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you get your official picture with the governor as he
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is signing the bill. And we're just like grinning. Like
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the picture is like, we're just, all of us are
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just like beaming. So that was, that was kind of
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like the pinnacle right there.
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And now when someone dies, they can be composted. And
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it's not just in Washington, but other states have started
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approving this too. It costs about as much or even
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less than getting cremated. You send your body in. They
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put you in a container, add things like alfalfa and straw,
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and away you go. And once it's done, your family
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will end up with all this soil. But as this
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has started to take off, a couple of concerns have
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come up. And a big one that scientists are pondering
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is whether this human compost is safe. Because a compost
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pile is full of bacteria, right? And if a person
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dies of some nasty disease, could that be in the compost?
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After the break, we follow the journey of more than
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a million composted chickens to find out. Hey, it's Wendy
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00:21:26.690 --> 00:21:28.829
from Science Versus, and I want to tell you about
363
00:21:28.910 --> 00:21:32.230
a podcast that I love, Science Friday. They cover all
364
00:21:32.269 --> 00:21:35.210
sorts of amazing things in the weird and wonderful world
365
00:21:35.230 --> 00:21:39.009
of science, from how concussions affect our brain to the
366
00:21:39.130 --> 00:21:42.890
inner secrets of a snake with a spider on its tail.
367
00:21:42.990 --> 00:21:45.269
It's a lot of news that you can use and
368
00:21:45.309 --> 00:21:47.369
some that you can't, but you're going to love anyway.
369
00:21:47.589 --> 00:21:51.109
It's hosted by Ira Flato and Phyllis. Flora Lichtman, who
370
00:21:51.210 --> 00:21:53.750
is an old friend of the show and loves a
371
00:21:53.769 --> 00:21:56.480
pun as much as we do. Science Friday is on
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00:21:56.680 --> 00:22:07.960
every day wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back. So,
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we just found out how to compost a human. A
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bit of alfalfa, straw and wood chips. Bada bing, bada boom.
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But now we want to know... Is this bacteria-stuffed pile
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of dirt actually safe to take home? So to find out,
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we called up Thomas Bass at Montana State University.
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Casually go by Tommy, which is just fine here.
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Tommy knows a lot about what happens to nasty pathogens
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inside compost heaps because he works with farmers. And as
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part of his job, when farmers get an outbreak of
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some disease like bird flu... He's part of the team
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that works out, what are we going to do here?
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And kind of surprisingly, Tommy told us that a lot
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of the time these farms are turning to composting their
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infected animals to deal with the outbreak. And that's because
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composting can actually kill pathogens. Like, Tommy told us about
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this huge chicken farm with over a million chickens. Bird
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flu broke out and all the chickens were to be composted.
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And so how much compost would that make?
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A lot. We did wind rows, which are long compost
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piles that are maybe 10 to 12 feet wide, six
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feet high and hundreds of feet long.
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It was roughly the size of a football field. They
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laid the carbon rich materials down like wood chips. And
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then all those dead chickens went in the pile.
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Some of my colleagues call it a Twinkie or whatnot.
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You have then a mix of the potentially infected material.
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Oh, that's the cream? That's the cream of the Twinkie?
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The infected chicken?
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The filling, if you will.
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00:24:07.140 --> 00:24:11.460
And what's pretty remarkable here is that this compost Twinkie
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is going to become a virus-killing machine. And here's a
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00:24:16.109 --> 00:24:19.559
big reason why. When the microbes get to work, it
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can get hot in that compost pile.
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When those microorganisms start doing their work and metabolizing and
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ripping apart carbon bonds and whatnot.
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How hot does it get in a big carcass compost pile?
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Generally, within a couple of days, you'll see temperatures 130, 140,
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00:24:35.569 --> 00:24:38.589
you know, 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Wow, that is cool that
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that is just the microbes.
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Hard at work.
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Yeah, yeah.
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One scientist told us that it got so hot in
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his compost pile that he actually cooked a roast dinner
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in there. Like, just for fun. He said it was delicious.
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But the point is that we have data that shows
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that when it gets hot enough over a certain period
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of time, lots of different dangerous pathogens struggle to survive.
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You know, it destroys such a wide range of pathogens,
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foot and mouth disease, avian influenza, plenty of bacteria, salmonella.
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According to the USDA, if your compost pile is around
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130 degrees Fahrenheit, which is roughly 55 Celsius, and it
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stays that way for at least three days, your avian
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flu should be a cock. And Katrina says that at
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her human composting facility, the vessels do get that hot.
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If you have that environment so tuned that the microbes
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are so happy that you're seeing temperatures, which is the
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indication of happiness for those microbes, we see the temperatures
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jump to 150 sometimes on day two.
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Wow.
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From cool. But although compost piles can kill a bunch
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of different pathogens … They're not John Wick. You can
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have some survivors. Because certain kinds of nasties, they can
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handle the heat of a compost pile. Like researchers have
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found that the bacteria that causes tuberculosis, that can survive.
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So can prions, those sturdy bastards that cause mad cow disease.
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And because of this, the law in Washington and other
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states says that at places like Katrina's They're not allowed
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to compost people who have died from particular diseases. They've
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also got to test the compost for certain bacteria. And
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big picture, Tommy says that even if human composting got
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really big, like thousands of people getting composted, tons of
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this stuff strewn across the landscape, as long as these
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companies are hitting those temperatures that we talked about and
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regularly testing their heap, for nasty bacteria, then he feels
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pretty good about it.
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So, you know, we're not seeing, you know, all the
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millions of tons of agricultural and food waste, including whole
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animals that has been composted, you know, forever. There's not
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evidence that it's posing a significant risk.
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Right.
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So in that, you know, football field... sized compost that
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you helped build for that huge chicken farm, all that
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compost then would have been used somewhere, right? And did
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that start an outbreak of avian flu?
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Right, it did not.
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And bottom line, Tommy told us that if he was
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given some burlap bags full of human compost, he'd gladly
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put them over his flowers.
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00:27:58.849 --> 00:28:01.650
Yeah, we've got some Gerber daisies that come back, and
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we've got sunflowers we'll replant.
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So you'd put it on the daisies?
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Yeah, and that just seems nice, right? And I just
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don't know that I'd put it on the tomatoes. It's
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almost like a— it would be like communion, right? Like, all right,
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kids— Here's the tomatoes, and there's a little bit of
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grandpa in there.
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So tell me, so why wouldn't it go on the
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tomatoes other than the slight creep factor?
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That's the only reason.
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Oh, really?
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It's not because you're worried about pathogens, just the creep factor?
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No, no.
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It's safe, you know, but there's always, I feel like,
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a leap of faith in science. We look at the
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00:28:43.569 --> 00:28:47.779
body of evidence— Nothing is ever certain in science. But,
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you know, I believe it to be very, very safe.
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Some other academics that we talked to about this were
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also pretty confident that it would be safe. But some
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were like, maybe don't put human compost on stuff that's
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going to go in your mouth. Would you do this
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for yourself? Would you get human composted?
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00:29:07.119 --> 00:29:10.460
Yeah, I would. And I talked to my wife a
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little bit about it. All of our carbon... can be
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sequestered back into the earth and all of our proteins
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and nitrogen and nutrients, calcium and phosphorus are valuable to
488
00:29:24.789 --> 00:29:27.609
healthy soils. And to me, it's a nicer idea than
489
00:29:27.670 --> 00:29:34.039
a super expensive velvety coffin in a cemetery. One of
490
00:29:34.059 --> 00:29:37.180
the most expensive pieces of furniture anybody will ever buy
491
00:29:37.720 --> 00:29:39.640
to be put in a vault six feet under.
492
00:29:42.210 --> 00:29:46.039
We don't know if human composting is the most environmentally
493
00:29:46.119 --> 00:29:49.319
friendly way to deal with our dead. It's just so new.
494
00:29:50.519 --> 00:29:52.920
But we do know that by putting our carbon in
495
00:29:52.940 --> 00:29:56.180
the earth, we're not pumping it into the atmosphere like
496
00:29:56.220 --> 00:30:01.079
we do with cremation. After all of this, Blythe and
497
00:30:01.140 --> 00:30:04.720
I just really wanted to know what this compost looked like,
498
00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:11.380
smelled like. So while we were at the composting place
499
00:30:11.420 --> 00:30:14.450
that Micah runs, we asked if we could see it.
500
00:30:15.549 --> 00:30:16.130
And he said yes.
501
00:30:16.150 --> 00:30:18.930
Yeah, why don't we open it just so you can
502
00:30:18.970 --> 00:30:19.230
take a.
503
00:30:19.190 --> 00:30:21.049
Sniff of what we have. Okay.
504
00:30:22.250 --> 00:30:25.490
Micah and the team pulled out a blue container about
505
00:30:25.509 --> 00:30:29.690
the size of those big blue recycling bins. And inside
506
00:30:29.759 --> 00:30:33.319
it is a human. Well, it was a human just
507
00:30:33.359 --> 00:30:36.759
a few weeks ago. Now it's compost. It came from
508
00:30:36.799 --> 00:30:39.099
a person whose family had agreed that it could be
509
00:30:39.140 --> 00:30:45.160
shown this way. So we're just slowly pulling out one
510
00:30:45.180 --> 00:30:45.880
of the vessels.
511
00:30:47.940 --> 00:30:48.460
Oh, wow.
512
00:30:49.500 --> 00:30:49.740
Is it?
513
00:30:50.579 --> 00:30:50.910
This is it.
514
00:30:50.920 --> 00:30:52.119
Isn't it beautiful?
515
00:30:53.220 --> 00:30:55.460
It is amazing. How about the smell?
516
00:30:58.170 --> 00:31:00.380
Like the forest after a rain. And it's like this
517
00:31:00.460 --> 00:31:05.339
very beautiful, like sort of auburn color, almost. Like a
518
00:31:05.420 --> 00:31:09.000
really rich brown with, you know, sort of flecks of
519
00:31:09.039 --> 00:31:11.640
different colors in it. Like sort of darker chips and
520
00:31:11.680 --> 00:31:12.339
lighter chips.
521
00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:13.920
Yeah, I mean, it looks really.
522
00:31:13.940 --> 00:31:16.650
I keep thinking of the word healthy, which feels really weird.
523
00:31:17.170 --> 00:31:21.230
Because we're sort of speaking of somebody who's past, but.
524
00:31:21.730 --> 00:31:22.990
Can I touch it?
525
00:31:22.990 --> 00:31:24.809
Look at your face.
526
00:31:24.829 --> 00:31:28.910
Okay, so I'm touching it now. Wow, it's just... It's
527
00:31:28.950 --> 00:31:33.769
like nothing I've ever felt before. I'm a little overwhelmed.
528
00:31:33.789 --> 00:31:37.720
I just can't believe it that this was a human
529
00:31:37.740 --> 00:31:40.980
a month ago. It's just incredible. You can't stop running
530
00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:41.859
your fingers through it.
531
00:31:42.079 --> 00:31:46.059
I can't stop running my fingers through it. I know,
532
00:31:46.099 --> 00:31:47.700
I just want to keep putting my hands in it.
533
00:31:47.700 --> 00:31:56.069
So we felt this weird awe as we were putting
534
00:31:56.130 --> 00:32:00.250
our hands in this human compost. But this was just
535
00:32:00.289 --> 00:32:04.799
a stranger to us. And we wondered, how would you
536
00:32:04.859 --> 00:32:07.619
feel if it was your loved one and you were
537
00:32:07.980 --> 00:32:12.339
putting your hands through them? So Blythe and I asked
538
00:32:12.380 --> 00:32:12.990
Brie about it.
539
00:32:13.000 --> 00:32:17.640
I guess I just, I have a really distinct memory.
540
00:32:17.660 --> 00:32:21.720
Brie told us about this woman who knew she was
541
00:32:21.779 --> 00:32:25.799
dying from cancer and wanted to be composted. After the
542
00:32:25.900 --> 00:32:29.269
process was all done... there were these big burlap bags
543
00:32:29.329 --> 00:32:33.009
of soil. And the woman's parents came to pick them up.
544
00:32:34.549 --> 00:32:37.630
And while the woman who died had wanted this for herself,
545
00:32:37.990 --> 00:32:40.650
her parents were clearly struggling with this whole idea.
546
00:32:41.509 --> 00:32:44.369
And when they came in, I could see the discomfort.
547
00:32:44.549 --> 00:32:47.910
I could really see the hesitation and the discomfort. Because
548
00:32:47.950 --> 00:32:50.059
when I saw that family come in and they saw
549
00:32:50.099 --> 00:32:50.849
these big.
550
00:32:50.730 --> 00:32:53.700
Bags of compost, you know, I saw.
551
00:32:54.339 --> 00:32:56.599
their wheels turning and them not being able to kind
552
00:32:56.619 --> 00:32:59.789
of take it in that moment, I decided to open
553
00:32:59.829 --> 00:33:02.190
a bag. I was like, I just think that this
554
00:33:02.250 --> 00:33:03.650
is going to be the way that we get through
555
00:33:03.670 --> 00:33:06.309
to them. And then the mother didn't even speak a
556
00:33:06.349 --> 00:33:08.609
word of English and walked over and just dug her
557
00:33:08.650 --> 00:33:13.190
hands in. And I saw the hesitation and the discomfort
558
00:33:13.269 --> 00:33:17.150
turn to her being comfortable and her really accepting it
559
00:33:17.230 --> 00:33:20.900
and And them hugging and her hugging me. And it
560
00:33:20.940 --> 00:33:24.619
was just the swing of emotions was extraordinary.
561
00:33:34.000 --> 00:33:37.400
Micah Truman, who owns this place, has been really surprised
562
00:33:37.480 --> 00:33:40.990
about how people are reacting to it. He told us
563
00:33:41.130 --> 00:33:44.789
stories of someone who poured Baileys inside the vessel before
564
00:33:44.849 --> 00:33:49.759
it closed. It was their person's favorite alcohol. People put
565
00:33:49.880 --> 00:33:53.900
photographs over the composting vessel and many just wanted to
566
00:33:54.019 --> 00:33:58.160
sit beside their person as they were composting. Sometimes they'd
567
00:33:58.180 --> 00:34:00.880
bring a cup of coffee for them and just put
568
00:34:00.920 --> 00:34:01.799
it on top of the vessel.
569
00:34:01.819 --> 00:34:06.789
Holy cow, I wasn't ready for that. I saw one
570
00:34:06.849 --> 00:34:09.849
guy take his mother's soil and I saw him, he
571
00:34:09.869 --> 00:34:11.269
took the bag and he put it in the front
572
00:34:11.289 --> 00:34:13.469
seat and then I saw him put the seatbelt on it.
573
00:34:14.599 --> 00:34:17.280
And when you do this with all the wood chips
574
00:34:17.360 --> 00:34:21.000
and straw and alfalfa, you end up driving home with
575
00:34:21.380 --> 00:34:25.940
quite a lot of compost. Micah says it's about 250
576
00:34:25.940 --> 00:34:32.510
pounds or a dozen big burlap bags. As Blythe and
577
00:34:32.530 --> 00:34:35.570
I were winding up our trip, our last stop was
578
00:34:35.610 --> 00:34:40.510
to see how some people were using their compost. We
579
00:34:40.530 --> 00:34:43.489
drove up to visit some land that Micah's company had bought.
580
00:34:44.179 --> 00:34:47.500
To help restore. It was out on a country road.
581
00:34:48.179 --> 00:34:50.139
Felt like it was kind of in the middle of nowhere.
582
00:34:50.159 --> 00:34:53.219
Hey, this is nice. It's like up on a hill.
583
00:34:55.789 --> 00:34:56.530
In the wilderness.
584
00:34:57.090 --> 00:35:01.550
At the entrance was this big moss-covered tree. Ooh, slug.
585
00:35:02.090 --> 00:35:03.530
A dead slug there, Anne.
586
00:35:03.789 --> 00:35:04.190
I don't know.
587
00:35:04.489 --> 00:35:05.170
Slug's on the move.
588
00:35:05.530 --> 00:35:07.389
Slowly.
589
00:35:09.030 --> 00:35:12.329
Life was all around this area. It was just really green,
590
00:35:12.469 --> 00:35:16.880
tons of trees. But then there was this clearing where
591
00:35:16.900 --> 00:35:19.360
there were no plants. It was kind of like a
592
00:35:19.719 --> 00:35:25.860
gravel driveway. And then over to one side, we saw
593
00:35:26.079 --> 00:35:31.260
where someone had carefully placed some compost. What we're seeing
594
00:35:31.320 --> 00:35:33.869
is just sort of this very thin layer of compost
595
00:35:33.929 --> 00:35:37.989
and then little shoots, plants, lots of different kinds popping up.
596
00:35:38.429 --> 00:35:41.250
You know, I'm like imagining sort of all the little
597
00:35:41.269 --> 00:35:44.349
microbes working their way through the soil and making it healthier.
598
00:35:45.409 --> 00:35:47.829
Like your little microbes are set free to sort of
599
00:35:47.889 --> 00:35:51.679
live on and like do good work and do their
600
00:35:51.699 --> 00:35:53.599
little microbe thing and like make the earth better. I
601
00:35:54.280 --> 00:35:55.239
think that seems very lovely.
602
00:35:55.260 --> 00:36:00.050
I mean, this is beautiful to think that your remains
603
00:36:00.119 --> 00:36:06.760
could create a beautiful little garden. That is lovely. Put
604
00:36:06.800 --> 00:36:08.139
me under some gum tree.
605
00:36:08.159 --> 00:36:11.619
Some kangaroos, I assume, digging around the base of the tree.
606
00:36:11.639 --> 00:36:15.210
Exactly, crapping on my composted remains.
607
00:36:15.230 --> 00:36:18.030
It's just really such a beautiful image you've painted.
608
00:36:33.420 --> 00:36:34.239
That's Science Versus.
609
00:36:37.260 --> 00:36:37.719
Hello.
610
00:36:38.199 --> 00:36:38.980
Hello.
611
00:36:39.000 --> 00:36:39.980
Wendy, is that you?
612
00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:40.579
Can you hear me?
613
00:36:41.460 --> 00:36:44.309
Barely. Where are you? Are you getting composted right now?
614
00:36:44.329 --> 00:36:44.400
Oh.
615
00:36:45.809 --> 00:36:50.630
Wait. Hello, Wendy?
616
00:36:50.829 --> 00:36:52.769
Hello. Hello, Blythe, Terrell.
617
00:36:53.070 --> 00:36:58.750
Wendy Zuckerman? Oh my God, it's you?
618
00:36:59.190 --> 00:37:02.840
Blythe, how many citations are in this week's episode?
619
00:37:03.300 --> 00:37:05.179
We have... More than.
620
00:37:05.039 --> 00:37:08.960
60 citations in this week's episode. More than 60. And
621
00:37:09.019 --> 00:37:11.360
if people want to see these citations, where should they go?
622
00:37:11.719 --> 00:37:13.909
They should go to our show notes and click on
623
00:37:13.949 --> 00:37:16.289
our transcripts. And they'll be laid out in front of
624
00:37:16.349 --> 00:37:18.730
them in all of their science-y glory.
625
00:37:18.909 --> 00:37:21.429
Almost as if I was going to make like a
626
00:37:21.510 --> 00:37:24.260
laid out to rest. Nah, don't worry about it.
627
00:37:24.380 --> 00:37:24.960
Bye.
628
00:37:25.340 --> 00:37:26.159
Bye.
629
00:37:26.179 --> 00:37:27.039
Thanks, bye.
630
00:37:27.079 --> 00:37:28.780
Bye. Thanks, Wendy. Bye.
631
00:37:35.190 --> 00:37:38.480
This episode was produced by Blythe Terrell and me, Wendy Zuckerman,
632
00:37:39.019 --> 00:37:41.860
with help from Meryl Horne, Michelle Dang, Rose Rimler, Courtney
633
00:37:41.880 --> 00:37:45.329
Gilbert and Disha Bhagat. We're edited by Blythe Terrell and
634
00:37:45.349 --> 00:37:49.139
Caitlin Kenney. Checking by Eva Dasher. Mix and sound design
635
00:37:49.199 --> 00:37:52.679
by Sam Baer. Music written by Bumi Hidaka, Emma Munger,
636
00:37:52.840 --> 00:37:56.099
Bobby Lord, So Wiley and Peter Leonard. Thanks to all
637
00:37:56.159 --> 00:37:57.860
of the researchers that we got in touch with for
638
00:37:57.889 --> 00:38:04.230
this episode, including Dr. Lynn Carpenter-Boggs, Dr. Muriel Lepester, Jean F. Bonotel, Dr.
639
00:38:04.289 --> 00:38:08.309
Mark Paulett, Professor Kombla Che, Dr. Ruth McManus and Dr.
640
00:38:08.329 --> 00:38:12.110
Julie Rugg. A special thanks to Jimmy Olsen, Jonathan Goldstein,
641
00:38:12.389 --> 00:38:17.139
Julia Martin, the Zuckerman family and Joseph Lavelle-Wilson. I'm Wendy Zuckerman.
642
00:38:17.639 --> 00:38:28.070
Back to you next time. Okay, hello, hello, hello. All right,
643
00:38:28.090 --> 00:38:30.650
we're just having a quick break, a quick banana. But
644
00:38:30.690 --> 00:38:32.769
I realized I didn't wash my hands.
645
00:38:33.869 --> 00:38:36.210
After you ran your hands through the compost, you didn't
646
00:38:36.230 --> 00:38:40.130
wash them yet? No, did you? I snuck some sanitizer,
647
00:38:40.150 --> 00:38:41.210
but I can still see some flecks.
648
00:38:42.670 --> 00:38:43.989
Yeah, I still have flecks too.
649
00:38:45.050 --> 00:38:46.300
Do you want to go back inside and wash your hands?