Music - Peter Head 0:00

Just remember that death is not the end.

Lo Carmen 0:13

The brilliant Norwegian artist Edvard Munch famously wrote these words, From my rotting body, flowers shall grow, and I am in them, and that is eternity. The genius pop artists wean, opined, push the little daisies and make them grow up. But singer-songwriter Tom Waits probably put it the most eloquently, as usual, when he sung these words. Yeah, we're all gonna be just dirt in the ground. Becoming part of the great cycle of life and death and birth and rebirth, returning our bodies to the earth, it's part of the natural order and something that we can all understand. But the truth is in Western culture, most of us simply choose between standard burial or cremation and neither choice is actually as eco-friendly as we might think. The carbon footprints of the dead... are heavy. Traditional caskets are made from steel, copper, bronze or wood, all treated with toxic chemicals which use around 4 million acres of forests annually. They're decorated with metal trimmings that can take hundreds of years to break down. Many cemeteries will require that you also purchase a burial vault or a liner so that the grave doesn't collapse. These are also made from concrete, plastic or steel. The manufacturing process for a steel coffin produces four times the carbon dioxide that's released in a typical cremation. Toxic embalming fluids leach into the soil via burials. Each flame cremation produces greenhouse gas emissions comparable to the monthly energy consumption of the average home. They also release toxic materials such as mercury into the atmosphere. And despite internet threads full of people stating their desire to be buried raw in the ground without a coffin or the use of embalming fluids, allowing their bodies to decompose naturally in the soil, the actual reality of making that happen is quite complex and difficult. Dependent upon where you live, whether there's natural burial grounds available near you, Being buried on private land requires quite complicated permissions from local councils, the director of public health, the landowner. Sometimes you even have to pay to turn the private land into land designated for use as a cemetery. We're actually running out of spaces to bury our dead in urban areas. Some cemeteries are expected to be full within the next 10 years, which is driving costs way up. Many of these cemeteries are utilising formerly unused areas to create new burial spots. Some might say the death care industry is a bit of a dumpster fire. The great news is that there are innovators and disruptors out there reimagining the death care industry and helping to create and design a much needed and wanted cleaner, greener way forward. It's pretty exciting. Today we're going to hear from Anna Swenson, who is a representative from Recompose, which has invented a form of human composting. Sounds crazy, but... Why don't I let Anna explain it?

Recompose/Anna Swenson 3:58

So Recompose is an ecological death care provider and funeral home based in Seattle, Washington. We are the first full-service funeral home in the world to offer the process of natural organic reduction, which is the gentle transformation of human bodies into soil. It's also sometimes called human composting. Our process works when we place each body into what we call a vessel. It's indoors. It's about a meter high and two meters long. It's made out of steel so these vessels are reusable and we place each body into the vessel with about three cubic meters of plant material. We use wood chips, alfalfa and straw.

Lo Carmen 4:42

I am just going to pop in here and describe the facilities which I've only seen in photographs and videos but They are really quite astoundingly beautiful, and more than a little high-tech science fiction-like. There's a honeycombed wall of white steel vessels, which is where the bodies go, kind of like a Japanese capsule hotel. At Recompose, they joke around calling it the Hotel for the Dead. Founder and CEO Katrina Spade. explains that she was striving for a blend of ritual science and technology with the premises. She was an architecture student originally, and she says that she wanted to make a space somewhere between a spaceship and the forest floor. And she really has attained her dream. Everything is surgically clean and white, but there are indoor trees and plants everywhere, along with beautiful photographs of plants. It has the most zen, calm, efficient vibe and looks safe and inviting and like it would smell woodsy and fresh. Spade was inspired by home funerals that she witnessed and natural burials. She loved the rituals that she observed and tried to recreate that with Recompose. They have a process called the laying in, which is the ceremonial farewell to the body before the vessel enters the honeycombed wall. During the laying in process, the dead are cocooned in bright organic cotton shrouds and surrounded by wood chips, straw and alfalfa. It looks cosy and beautiful, almost like something you would see in a florist.

Recompose/Anna Swenson 6:34

actually the microbes that naturally occur on our bodies and in that plant material that power the transformation into soil. They create heat of over 131 degrees Fahrenheit And I did not look up what the Celsius is, but it's pretty warm. And that heat that's created is what transforms the body into soil. And the change takes place on a molecular level. So that heat transforms the bones. It breaks down any pharmaceuticals that are in the body, any pathogens. And the body remains in the vessel for 30 days. And then we remove the soil from the vessel, screen for non-organics like hip implants. We test it. it for safety and then it cures and dries for about two to four more weeks. So the time between when the body goes into the vessel and when the soil is ready to go back to the family is between six and eight weeks. It creates about a cubic meter of soil, and families can either take it home and use it on their lawns or gardens if they want, or we have a forest that folks can donate it to if they'd rather spend eternity in a forest. So that's what I've chosen for my soil, is to go to Bell's Mountain. And sometimes when I'm having a really rough day, I'm like, you know what?

Music - Adam Young 8:03

You belong somewhere close to me Far away from your trouble and worries You belong somewhere you feel free You belong somewhere you feel free

Recompose/Anna Swenson 8:39

So our founder and CEO, Katrina Spade, first had the idea for this process when she was getting her master's degree in architecture in about 2014. She's a person who cares about the environment. She makes eco-conscious choices. And she wasn't really feeling like conventional burial or cremation were really what she wanted for herself. And around this time, as she was thinking about this, she had a friend call her and say, you know, farmers in the U.S. have been recycling livestock using composting practices for many decades. It's well-studied soil science. And that's how Katrina got the idea to try and do it for humans. Most folks understand that conventional burial in a cemetery with a concrete vault and a hardwood casket and embalming, like most people are hip to the fact that that is environmentally harmful. But a lot of those folks think that cremation is just like the easier choice. It's green. It's not a lot of work for your people and just choose that and it's done. However, the environmental impact of cremation and conventional burial are about the same. And that's because of the fossil gas required to create the heat that is created in the crematory retort. So once people learn that, then they're open to hearing about the fact that for every person who chooses the recompose process over conventional burial or cremation, one metric ton of carbon dioxide is saved from entering the environment. So it really is an impactful choice.

Lo Carmen 10:11

How long does a body take to decompose naturally?

Recompose/Anna Swenson 10:14

Yeah, so sometimes people ask me, like, wouldn't this human composting process take place on the forest floor naturally, and it would. It just takes a lot longer. It really depends on conditions like moisture, what the makeup of the soil is, what the temperature is. A

Lo Carmen 10:29

lot of people find the idea very confronting at first and then when they learn more about it they tend to fall in love with it.

Recompose/Anna Swenson 10:40

So the laying in is the name that we use for the ceremony and part of it is a literal laying in where we lay the body into the vessel with the plant material and depending on the family some families elect not to watch that and our staff does it. We do try to be extra respectful. We always say a little something about who the person was, and we'll ask the family if there's any music that they want us to play while we're doing this work. We get a lot of Celine Dion, which is, you know, fun.

Lo Carmen 11:11

Is it My Heart Will Go On?

Recompose/Anna Swenson 11:13

There was one gentleman early on who chose that song, and then there's another one. There's like a duet that she has with Andrea Bocelli that a couple people have chosen. Yeah, and then, you know, there's like some classical music. One gentleman men chose sublime which was a fun change amazing yeah it can really be a creation of what who the person was and what their family finds

Lo Carmen 11:43

the thing that seems most beautiful about it is that life comes out of death that it literally means that death is not the end. Have there been many people besides the Catholic Church that have been anti what you're doing?

Recompose/Anna Swenson 12:00

You know, we're lucky that most people are very curious at the very least, even if they decide that it's ultimately not for them, they sort of find it intriguing. We don't have a whole lot of Haters or you know people who are just like really vehemently opposed to this and I think a couple reasons for that one is that We've done a lot of education to make people understand that this is something that we've researched and there is science behind it and we can prove that it's safe. So people don't usually have a great experience with the conventional funeral industry. At least here in the US, it has a reputation for sort of not being the most transparent and not being the most supportive. So people like that Recompose is changing that. Sometimes I really go looking for people who are opposed to what we're doing, and some people are like, oh, they're going to make us grow food with it and then eat it, and we'll be eating our relatives. And we're like, no, we do not encourage you to grow food with this soil. It's just a choice that you don't have to make.

Lo Carmen 13:12

That's not a bad idea, though, really, is it?

Lo Carmen 13:22

The position of the Catholic Church is... A little confusing. Archbishop Michael Jackles of Iowa issued a statement in 2021 acknowledging the opposition from some of the other bishops who consider natural organic reduction and alkaline hydrolysis methods offensive, disrespectful, but he personally supported them, touting them as green options that the Catholic Church ought to allow. Dennis Paust, who's the executive director of the New York State Catholic Conference, wrote some letters to the New York governor where he stated that composting does not respect the human body as a vessel of the soul and said that composting is something we as a society associate with a sustainable method of eliminating organic trash that otherwise ends up in landfills. but human bodies are not household waste and we do not believe that the process meets the standard of reverent treatment. He wrote, the process that is perfectly appropriate for returning vegetable trimmings to the earth is not necessarily appropriate for human bodies. I guess each to their own. Dennis. Dennis.

Recompose/Anna Swenson 14:57

Before we opened our facility called The Greenhouse, we thought people would want this, but we weren't really sure if they would be actually open to sending their loved one to us to be transformed into soil, but turns out actually a lot of people are willing to and a lot of people want to.

Lo Carmen 15:13

Is there a particular demographic that you find is more attracted to it or are you often surprised?

Recompose/Anna Swenson 15:18

Really a variety. I don't think that there's any one particular type of person. Maybe a trend would be these are folks who want to know what happens to them when they die, like they are more introspective and curious maybe than the average funeral consumer. You know, you do have to do a little bit of digging to figure out what this is and that you want it. We've been over capacity since we opened, which is great, but also hard because we don't want to turn people away.

Lo Carmen 15:49

Before you started working there, was your own death something you had considered? Were you prepared in any way?

Recompose/Anna Swenson 15:57

Yeah I went to a lot of family funerals when I was younger and they were all just like sort of stuffy and boring and like felt a little bit fake so for a long time I was like I'm never going to a funeral again like I don't care these are dumb but then as I started there was a book that I read called From Here to Eternity by Caitlin Doty who's a friend of Recompose and that was when I started thinking about you know maybe there's another way to do this that feels more like more authentic to me. I kind of also thought I was just going to choose cremation because that sounded easier but you know I didn't really like it but it kind of sounded like I didn't you know I didn't want to burden my people so that kind of sounded like the hands-off thing to do so I'm actually does bring a good sense of relief that I have it taken care of and no one has to worry about it and it's something that really is in alignment with my values.

Lo Carmen 16:50

You know, the fact that we can take our own death care into our own hands and pre-plan by enrolling in something like Precompose, I think is really fantastic. It's totally something that I would do if I could. However, unfortunately, Recompose is currently only available in the United States.

Recompose/Anna Swenson 17:15

If folks are interested in getting this legalized in their state, great thing to do is to talk to your local representatives, specifically your state senator. That's how we've gotten into Oregon, for example. There was like one... community member who called his representative and was so annoying that he was like, fine, I'll do this bill. That's fantastic, really. I love hearing about one person making a difference. And so what specifically do they say? I think just like I want to choose natural organic reduction for myself, this matters to me because of X reason, please put this legislation forward.

Lo Carmen 17:50

Is aquamation and green burial, is that also considered natural organic reduction?

Recompose/Anna Swenson 17:56

So those are different processes that are usually regulated separately. Here in Washington, the bill that legalized natural organic reduction also legalized alkaline hydrolysis or water cremation, which is great. That's another, if anyone listening doesn't know, that's a process where bodies are placed in a machine with water and sulfates and charge, and it takes a few hours for the body to be reduced to sand I think it's good because it uses one-eighth the energy of conventional burial or cremation, so it has some of the same environmental benefits as natural organic reduction. Sometimes we say folks can think about whether they like the idea of soil better, they like the idea of water better, sort of like gut feeling what matters to you. And then green burial... I actually don't know how that one is regulated. From what I understand, you can probably establish a green burial cemetery in most states without changing the laws, but I don't know for sure. Here in the US, it varies by state. Like in Washington, for example, you can't be buried on your own land. Unless you designate the land as a cemetery and it costs like $20,000. But in other states, you can just like tell the city where you buried a body and they don't care. Wow. Yeah, I know.

Lo Carmen 19:16

It's a whole world, isn't it?

Recompose/Anna Swenson 19:18

It really

Lo Carmen 19:21

Has being around death given you any insight into what happens after we die? Spiritually? Do you think that anything remains or do you think when we die, we're just gone?

Recompose/Anna Swenson 19:39

Wow, what an interesting question. I mean, for me personally, I think that our consciousness returns to the collective, right? I always say that I really want to meet a ghost, even though I don't really believe in ghosts.

Lo Carmen 19:56

I'm exactly the same.

Recompose/Anna Swenson 19:58

Yeah. I would love to be wrong. Working in death care has really given me an appreciation for the unexplained. When I train our new employees, I always say like part of what recomposes is like an appreciation for the unknown. And I came from a really corporate background that had no appreciation for the unknown. So it, it, It is comforting and kind of validating to realize that I don't have all the answers and no one does. It's been great to be part of a movement of people thinking more consciously about what they want to be. There's something empowering about dying as you've lived and having an empowered choice.

Lo Carmen 20:41

Yeah, absolutely. If you want me again, look for me under your boot soles. Wise words there from Walt Whitman. After learning about Recompose with Anna, I found myself really curious about the other kinds of natural organic reduction and environmentally conscious options that are available. According to the US-based National Funeral Directors Association, I'm Not Alone, In 2022, over 60% of people that were surveyed reported that they would be interested in green funeral options. In America, natural burial is legal in all 50 states, with variations on rules, regulations and availability. There's around 220 natural burial sites there. There's about 270 in the UK, where it's more popular, and around 15 sites in Australia. Some of them attach to regular cemeteries. There's an area that can be used strictly for natural burial. Others are more particular. Germany has what they call sanctuary or cinerary forests, which allows for the burial of urns, not bodies. but they're also very beautiful and now France is adopting that idea also and there's a couple of cinerary forests starting there where residents can be buried free of charge without flowers, wreaths or headstones. I remembered my friend Bleddyn Butcher, a wonderful photographer, mentioning that his sister had chosen a natural burial for herself and how special it was.

Bleddyn Butcher 23:02

She figured after much research and discussion with her doctors that if she went off chemo she'd probably have four to six weeks clear with her husband and her family and then after that she'd begin the process of dying and she didn't She did it with clear eyes and knowledge and she just wanted to have some time with her family and she knew she was going to die anyway and it didn't matter to her whether it was in three months. without chemotherapy or in nine months with chemotherapy. It was just, I want to have some clear blue water or whatever you want to call it. So that's what she did. And in that period, it's been a lot of time driving around Perth and its environs with her husband. They were doing, they were talking about what he would do and what the family would do after she was gone, how she would like to be remembered. And and they explored the possibilities and the one that she decided was she had no interest in having a memorial, a headstone, but she was attracted to the idea that there would be a place that her family could come and visit her or think about her but not actually have to look at a headstone or a memorial tablet. So she found this place. It's a cemetery but it's relatively natural. There's a huge mob of kangaroos there and she chose to have an unmarked grave.

Lo Carmen 24:44

So do you have coordinates to find her?

Bleddyn Butcher 24:46

Well, I carried the coffin so I know where it is and I know exactly where it is because I I've been back there a number of times with mostly with my mother but also alone And I figured out a way to... I know exactly where the grave is. There's a root and there's a fork in the tree and you start lining up. But Mum keeps complaining about how she's forgotten where the grave actually is, but I haven't. She kind of liked the idea, I think, that when people... made the formal decision to sort of visit her grave, that they would also effectively be commuting with nature. Because there wasn't a monument to worship, it was just that you were in the place where her body was buried. And that's actually a very effective decision. I don't know about the word spiritual, but there's something about it that's quite moving.

Lo Carmen 25:54

So was kind of a gift?

Bleddyn Butcher 25:56

Yeah.

Lo Carmen 25:56

To you in some way.

Bleddyn Butcher 25:57

Oh, yeah, it was. Yeah. My mother responded to it by immediately saying that she wanted to be buried in the same way, in the same place and alongside and has booked the space.

Lo Carmen 26:10

Amazing. Was your sister in a compostable coffin?

Bleddyn Butcher 26:15

Yeah. Yeah, that was the other thing. It's a wicker coffin.

Lo Carmen 26:18

Wicker, okay. So did she choose that herself?

Bleddyn Butcher 26:21

Yeah. Yeah. I think that she quite... I didn't actually discuss worms with her, but when I was talking with her about it, she was quite happy to be dust to dust. She was quite happy with that. The idea that the molecules of her body would just be returned to the earth. She quite liked that idea. And I like it too. I like the way that she wasn't putting any impediment like a jar of coffin. in between it's a wicker coffin so you could see her wrapped body when you were carrying the coffin so she was

Lo Carmen 27:02

in a shroud but

Bleddyn Butcher 27:03

there was something chrysalis like as opposed to something as opposed to like a sealed box there was something transformative about her coffin the wicker coffin because it's sort of much more like a chrysalis, as I say. And so you're aware that, well, to me, the metaphor was that she was embarking upon a change of state. And that was quite moving. The fact that she was not only reconciled to that, but she embraced it. And it wasn't anyone else's decision except hers. which I liked as well because quite often people don't make plans for that sort of thing.

Lo Carmen 27:50

That's right. And then you end up feeling like, oh, I don't know that they would have wanted this. Yeah.

Bleddyn Butcher 27:56

So part of what was pleasing is that that was her decision. And another part is that it seems to have been a very good decision. You know, she did explore... actually even more anonymous solutions. Like if somebody owns land, you are allowed to bury people with permission. But she decided against that. She decided that probably the surviving members of the family would want to have somewhere to go. I know that I appreciate it, and I think my mother does. The ritual element, nothing happens When we go up there, no one takes flowers or anything. They actually suggest that you shouldn't, but apparently the kangaroos like flowers quite a lot anyway. They actually eat them. Part of the ritual of the burial that was so moving is that as traditionally you throw a handful of dirt onto the coffin, and a flower or flowers. When you picked up the handful of dirt, which was just great, because I didn't go from the pile that was dug up, I just picked my handful up from the gravesite. and threw it onto the coffin. What was kind of moving is that the dirt filtered through the coffin onto the shroud. So you're actually initiating the process of transformation yourself. And if, I mean, I was one of the last people to leave the gravesite and made sure that there was quite a lot, that the grave digger didn't just come along and... push the dirt in with a digger, made sure that there was actually a veil of dirt over the whole thing so that we'd actually initiated the process. I don't know whether anyone else was thinking the same way as me, but that's what I was thinking. It was very moving and it was good to hold it in the open air. It was the ambient sounds. Everyone was gathered outside. It was very purposeful and very meaningful.

Lo Carmen 30:13

And was she someone that was really environmentally conscious? Was that part of what prompted it? Or was it more the philosophical and the meaningfulness of it?

Bleddyn Butcher 30:23

I think it's a mixture of the two. It was explicitly, she was quite explicit about the lack of impact on the environment. But I think she was, if we can call it spiritual, I think her idea of commuting with nature was uppermost. But that's sort of the flip side of the same impulse. And I think the generosity comes in finding somewhere meaningful. You can actually be put into a grave which has got an allocated space in sort of like a rigid grid up there and there is an area where they have gravestones as well. So she whittled the options down into the most anonymous of those. It wasn't about a monument, it's about she understood that people would remember her and would want somewhere special. it was a good thought it's kind of remarkable that she should use her remaining time in that

Lo Carmen 31:40

well that's it from me today i really enjoyed learning about these environmentally friendly efficient and effective alternatives for disposing of our earthly remains I will leave information on how to contact them in the show notes. But if you just want to do a quick Google right here, right now, recompose.life. So if you want to come and find me at locarmen.substack.com If you subscribe and become part of the community, which you can do for free, it doesn't cost a thing. That way we can just chat more about all of these options and you can share any knowledge or stories that you have. I, and I'm sure others, would love to be talking together about all of this. There's so much to talk about. Thank you so much for joining me on Death Is Not The End. See you next time.

Music - Peter Head 32:57

Death Is

Lo Carmen 33:06

Not The End is produced by Black Tambourine Productions. Recorded and written by me, Lo Carmen, on Gadigal land that was never ceded. Peter Head composed the beautiful theme music. Death is not the end