Transcript
Speaker: Hi and welcome to another episode of the Glam Reaper podcast.
Speaker: I'm your host Jennifer Muldaney aka The Glam Reaper.
Speaker: On today's episode we're getting into the mud.
Speaker: Let's leave it at that.
Speaker: Let's take it away.
Speaker: Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of the Glam Reaper podcast.
Speaker: I'm your host Jennifer Muldowney aka the Glam Reaper and on today's episode we have the gorgeous, the lovely Brie and she's going to talk to us about all things dirt.
Speaker: So I'm being a bit funny with that and you'll soon find out why.
Speaker: Let's take it away.
Speaker: Brie, welcome.
Speaker: Thank you Jennifer.
Speaker: Thank you so much for having me on and I'm really excited just to chat with you about it today and answer all your questions.
Speaker: Well, tell us.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So tell us who you are, where you're speaking to you from and what exactly it is that you do for a living.
Speaker: And I'm going to bumping it there.
Speaker: Bad jokes on the charts today.
Speaker: It's the vibe that makes it comfortable to have these types of conversations.
Speaker: I'm Bree Smith.
Speaker: I'm the chief operating officer at the largest facility for human composting in the world.
Speaker: It is called Return Home, and we are located in Auburn, Washington.
Speaker: And I have been with this company for two years.
Speaker: It's actually my two year anniversary in one month.
Speaker: And basically I oversee the entire facility.
Speaker: So I'm a licensed funeral director and embalmer.
Speaker: So I make sure that the families are met with and the operating procedures are in place for them to be taken care of and loved and
Speaker: served the way they need to be served.
Speaker: And then I also make sure that operations are running in the back of house for the actual process of composting itself.
Speaker: And basically just making sure everything is done with industry leading standards.
Speaker: Amazing.
Speaker: Now, for those of our listeners who maybe don't know, tell us what is human composting?
Speaker: So human composting, or what we like to call teramation,
Speaker: is the gentle transformation of human remains into soil.
Speaker: So instead of burial and cremation, we transform people into soil that is then returned to the family and they can choose to do what they want with that soil.
Speaker: And we also have a green belt if they can't take all of the soil because obviously in quantities, it's not an urn sized amount we're returning, it's quite a bit more.
Speaker: So essentially returning organic matter to the earth is very important to our company.
Speaker: Okay, so I can be put into a vessel, a capsule effectively, and I'm going to turn into soil.
Speaker: That's the kind of the short and the long of it.
Speaker: Okay, amazing.
Speaker: How much more, or does it depend on the human being, like the size of the human being, how much more ashes or like soil in your respect?
Speaker: So people are used to burial and cremation, right?
Speaker: So let's just, that's what people know.
Speaker: That's what they're comfortable with.
Speaker: That's what they're familiar with.
Speaker: You and I both know both of those are destructing of the environment.
Speaker: They're not good for climate.
Speaker: Like they're just bad.
Speaker: This is obviously potentially a solution, which is amazing.
Speaker: But talk to people, I guess, in terms of what they already know.
Speaker: So cremation, you get an urn.
Speaker: We all know, we don't all know, but we have an idea as to what the size of that is.
Speaker: Is it like three times that amount, 10 times?
Speaker: I can actually quantify it for you.
Speaker: So it's about a cubic yard.
Speaker: We put people into burlap because it allows the compost to continue breathing and it's also biodegradable.
Speaker: So when people go home, we send them home in burlap and it usually generates anywhere from 10 to 15 20 pound burlap bags.
Speaker: But ultimately, that quantity we have fit into the back of a Honda Fit.
Speaker: So it sounds like a lot, but really it's manageable.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And people can use that in their backyard.
Speaker: They can use it anywhere they may have sort of sprinkled cremated remains before, right?
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that includes cemeteries as well.
Speaker: We've had some people return to soil and
Speaker: Basically, they're mixed with the soil and tampered down into their final resting place in a cemetery.
Speaker: So we've seen arboretums, gardens, of course, family properties where people have had that property for quite some time and it's in their family and it's generational.
Speaker: And then, yeah, it's an option for families from that and, you know, big properties all the way to a condo where the person has decided to memorialize their loved one in a house plant.
Speaker: So basically anything in between donating the full amount to what we call the woodland, which is our greenbelt property that we purchased to revitalize.
Speaker: the native flora in our area.
Speaker: It's just about 10 minutes north of our facility.
Speaker: So they can donate the full amount to restoration of Washington state in that way, or they can choose to take the full amount home.
Speaker: And for an example, one of my families took home the full amount and they lived on acreage.
Speaker: and decided to do a tree barrier wall with their father's remains where they have a big stone memorial that's engraved for him.
Speaker: And this tree of this barrier wall of trees is going to be protecting their home for generations to come.
Speaker: So those are a couple of examples.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: And so the human body goes into a specifically designed vessel and certain things are added and effectively or correct me if I'm wrong, effectively, it's speeding up what happens with natural burial.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So we take straw, alfalfa, and sawdust, and we have vessels that have inputs for oxygen and outputs for oxygen.
Speaker: So it's an aerobic process.
Speaker: And essentially, if you died in nature, we all know that you would break down naturally.
Speaker: And some of it might be driven by animal activity, and some of it might be driven by just the natural breakdown of your body.
Speaker: But ultimately, our bodies really were made to turn back into
Speaker: earth the same way when leaves fall on the ground, they reintegrate with the earth.
Speaker: And so we just use that same technology literally that's existed since time began.
Speaker: It's as old as time and as long as things have been living.
Speaker: And we've optimized the environment in which the breakdown takes place.
Speaker: So we're able to accommodate families to have the service and return their loved ones back within 60 to 90 days, roughly.
Speaker: Okay, so 60 to 90 days, you're in this container and then your soil.
Speaker: So there's different steps, of course.
Speaker: We have different phases of our process.
Speaker: The initial breakdown of the body is 30 to 60 days.
Speaker: And that is dependent on the build of the person.
Speaker: Do they have a lot of fat?
Speaker: Are they really emaciated?
Speaker: What kind of case are we dealing with?
Speaker: And then we can kind of gauge how long they'll be in that first phase.
Speaker: We do the same thing like after cremation.
Speaker: So after that first phase, the body has transformed into soil, but the bones remain.
Speaker: and then anything inside of the body that was inorganic.
Speaker: So things they tell us about like stints and screws and plates and things they don't tell us about like silicone, we call them squishies and hards.
Speaker: We remove all of the inorganics from the person's compost.
Speaker: And then everything goes through machinery that breaks it down to become uniform.
Speaker: And when that happens, the bone becomes porous.
Speaker: And then the microbes continue to do that breakdown that they were doing inside of the vessel, but now on the bones.
Speaker: And that takes another 30 days to have happen.
Speaker: Okay, so the body goes in and during phase one, there's certain decomposition and then you take out sort of implants and anything like that and they're recycled in however way they're dealt with.
Speaker: But you leave the bones and the squishy matter left.
Speaker: You leave that in there to further decompose.
Speaker: So the squishy would be implants like breast implants or Brazilian or things of that sort.
Speaker: So at that point, there's no flesh that has completely become integrated.
Speaker: OK, so the 30 days, there's no flesh.
Speaker: That's what I was thinking of the squishy.
Speaker: I have a lot of squishy.
Speaker: So that's why I'm calling it squishy.
Speaker: OK, so after 30 days, there's no squishy left.
Speaker: There's just implants and, you know, like breast implants that are I can understand now that they're squishy.
Speaker: And then the harder implants and my plates and things and then the bones and then the bones go in and they get further decomposed.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So the, like I said, the compost, those organics and the bones all go through, not quite a cremulator, but something very similar that breaks the bone down so that it's uniform with the compost.
Speaker: And then after that happens, it rests for another 30 days to allow the microbial activity to kind of complete its final phase, if you will.
Speaker: And then at that point, people are ready to be returned home to their loved ones.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: And so, because I know like in your typical cremated remains, the pH balance is off of the, you know, the pH balance.
Speaker: People think you can put a seed into cremated remains and turn into a tree.
Speaker: And I'm like, no, it doesn't work like that.
Speaker: And now I'm no scientist.
Speaker: So, but with yours, you're taking, your soil allows for that.
Speaker: So the pH balance has been
Speaker: Balanced, I guess, is the.
Speaker: Correct.
Speaker: So nature is amazing and beautiful.
Speaker: And when we let it do its thing in its time, it has a way of producing something that not only will it rise in temperature so that if there were any pathogens that does actually I'll do a little asterisk that prion related diseases cannot go through our process.
Speaker: because the temperatures do not get high enough.
Speaker: But, you know, any other, any cancer, people ask a lot about radiation and chemotherapy, anything of that sort, because of the temperature inside of the vessel during that first phase, actually becomes inert.
Speaker: And the pH does balance itself out.
Speaker: And what happens is, is the state of Washington, where we're located, requires us to do really rigorous testing on the soil and
Speaker: So they go through and they check for things like salmonella and fecal coliform and heavy metals and all these different things.
Speaker: And we've never not had a passing soil sample.
Speaker: So we know that everything that's going back to families is able to be used and is healthy to use and safe to use for sure.
Speaker: So for us, the state of Washington has a lot of requirements and one of those is that everyone who goes through our process for the first X amount and then a certain percentage after that, the science, the soil has to be tested by a third party.
Speaker: And we're tested for things like pH, what you discussed, fecal coliform, salmonella, heavy metals,
Speaker: And we have to pass those regulations set by the state in order to return people home to their loved one.
Speaker: We've actually never failed a test still to this day.
Speaker: We've had amazing results with our process.
Speaker: And we do find that the pH ends up being right down the middle, right at about six or seven.
Speaker: So it's completely healthy to use on, you know, plant matter and in your home.
Speaker: And it's it's
Speaker: okay to interact with it physically, so to tangibly touch it and use it, which for us is, it's a great point of validation for us to be able to tell people that because I think a lot of people get these
Speaker: preconceived notions of disease spreading, plagues, you know, things that are really, really awful when pathogens are able to run rampant.
Speaker: But because of the temperatures inside of the vessels in the first phase, things like, you know, COVID-19 or any pathogens that might exist within the body or chemotherapy or radiation are
Speaker: All of these things are going to become inert and actually radiation.
Speaker: We wouldn't put them in the vessel until the half-life was gone anyway.
Speaker: But the only people we're not allowed to help are those with prion related diseases because the temperature does not get high enough to kill those pathogens.
Speaker: And we would suggest cremation for those families or alkaline hydrolysis.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: God, it's very fascinating.
Speaker: Now, what about... So when we're in the vessel, is there... Like, what about methane gases?
Speaker: You know, because coming from Ireland, very much a farming country and stuff, and obviously...
Speaker: I personally am very into the environment and as much as I can I try and absorb it's sort of one of my pillars in the funeral space the environment right the funeral I feel like the funeral community kind of I don't want to say got away with it for so long but nobody wanted to talk about it and so you know politicians just same people don't want to talk about it I mean I've met with politicians who I'll mention it to them and they go God I never even thought of the death industry and I'm like yeah I mean really so
Speaker: So methane is obviously a huge problem.
Speaker: How does that get captured or does it or tell me?
Speaker: So I love the question about methane because it is so vital to our process that it stay anaerobic, which means we are constantly monitoring the moisture, the oxygen flow and the temperature inside of that vessel.
Speaker: And oxygen regulates that methane problem.
Speaker: So as long as oxygen is moving through the vessel, we don't have methane.
Speaker: What happens is if the person and the organics inside have too much moisture or too little moisture, they'll either solidify and the oxygen can't flow through and then we have an issue or it's too dry and too much oxygen is going through and we're essentially mummifying that person, really drying them out.
Speaker: So we have optimized this science.
Speaker: We actually started research and development in 2019
Speaker: when the law in Washington was passed to ensure that our processes, when they were done on humans, were completely dialed.
Speaker: And that's what we did.
Speaker: So we tested on pigs for about two and a half years to ensure no methane.
Speaker: What's also amazing about our process, and our system is set up in a warehouse, but the reason for that is because we have a really intricate HVAC system.
Speaker: In fact, one that we probably over-engineered for the service that it offers us.
Speaker: We learned a lot.
Speaker: But ultimately, that HVAC system allows for the off-gassing, and then it leads to a biofilter that is full of wood chips that are coated in chicken poop.
Speaker: Chicken poop is nitrogen dense, and so when odorous air goes through that biofilter, those microbes in that chicken poop actually consume the odorous air.
Speaker: And so we are able to run a completely odorless process
Speaker: both inside and outside due to that.
Speaker: And that's all connected to that oxygen movement.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Honestly, I have said it for years.
Speaker: Back when I saw Katrina in Greenwood, and I know you guys are, it's a separate facilities and everything like that.
Speaker: But back when this became, was kind of an idea that people were talking about, I am dying, not dying, dying actually, but I really want to go and see your facility for myself, take the Glam Reaper podcast and just really, you know, walk through the facility and see it for myself with my own eyes.
Speaker: Because I do feel like a lot of people, that's where they trust, they believe once they can see it with their own eyes.
Speaker: Now, obviously, in very exciting news, New York State just passed at the start of this year that this can be a thing here in New York.
Speaker: Is there any, have you heard any rumblings either of yourselves or anybody else who may bring it to New York?
Speaker: Or can you give us any inside gossip?
Speaker: Well, I can tell you this.
Speaker: I know that Washington State and New York laws are very different for a funeral and cemetery.
Speaker: So I think that the way the law was written, it might not quite be ready for what return home does, which is so family oriented, as in we invite families to do and participate in every part of the process from, you know, the at home funeral to the
Speaker: transportation of remains to bathing at our facility.
Speaker: So for us, I think that right now we're just holding on New York and hoping for an upgrade in the verbiage in that law.
Speaker: And I can tell you, I do have many friends in the space and I don't know that anyone's seeking New York, but what I do know is that a lot of people from New York are seeking us.
Speaker: So I think it's a strain of things to come that there are funeral professionals and
Speaker: in those states that are having legislation pass who really do want to offer this to their families and return home really a big part of what we hoped to do and you kind of mentioned it is to open up the facility to expose people to what it is via social media and we get a lot of intrigue from the industry because we're so transparent with what we do
Speaker: That I think there's just an underlying base of respect for our outreach to the industry specifically, because I think, you know, and I can't necessarily speak for the other facilities, but maybe they just don't share the information as freely as we do.
Speaker: But there's a reason for that.
Speaker: And it's because we want the funeral industry to know that I've been an embalmer for over a decade.
Speaker: I know what the job that you do.
Speaker: I know the work that you do and I can do it too, but you can't do what I do.
Speaker: And I want to share with you why these families are choosing this option.
Speaker: And it's because it's gentle, it's life-giving.
Speaker: It takes very little resources.
Speaker: It's
Speaker: we are a team of six people, but really solely four people who manage and operate all of the families and all of the decedents who come into our care.
Speaker: So on a very skeleton staff, we're able to serve a very large group of people and not to mention from all over the United States.
Speaker: So, you know, the families in New York who heard of it passing, don't have access to it, will ship their loved ones all the way to Washington for this to take place.
Speaker: So we know
Speaker: that the need is out there, the want is out there to the point where they're doing something really non-traditional, which is going to a funeral home thousands of miles away for a service that just isn't offered in their area.
Speaker: So we're excited to see where this grows to and how this expands for sure.
Speaker: Well, that is amazing.
Speaker: And thank you so much.
Speaker: We're going to end on that note and we'll probably get you back.
Speaker: We had a few technical difficulties during this episode, which hopefully the listeners and the viewers don't get to witness and see.
Speaker: But thank you so much, Bree.
Speaker: That was super educational.
Speaker: And hopefully we'll get some questions in from our listeners that can ask, you know, the questions maybe I didn't ask because I think it's an amazing opportunity
Speaker: opportunity i really hope new york does get behind it um i think it's i think it seems like a beautiful um process burial and cremation need some competition as far as i'm concerned in terms of we need to help mother nature a little bit more than we are especially in our space um so thank you so much for giving us all your words of wisdom oh it's been fun jennifer and i'll be back on any time and if you're ever in the seattle area you just absolutely have to come see us
Speaker: So that was another great episode of the Glam Reaper podcast.
Speaker: What do you think?
Speaker: Would you get your remains composted?
Speaker: Would your parents, your loved ones?
Speaker: Let us know your thoughts in the comments, DM us, or in general, just let us know.
Speaker: You can send us an email, glamreaperpodcast at gmail.com, and we look forward to hearing from you soon.
Speaker: so
