Transcript
Speaker: We created Be a Tree Cremation because I wanted to give people a viable path to get to that point and feel that connection.
Speaker: Hi everybody 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 are talking about what the entire internet I feel is talking about which is how to become a tree when you die.
Speaker: So without further ado here is Emily to tell us all about Be a Tree Cremation.
Speaker: Emily welcome.
Speaker: Hi, Jennifer.
Speaker: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Yeah, I feel like the one question I get constantly is, Jen, how can I become a tree when I die?
Speaker: And I mean, it's not an easy answer.
Speaker: It is more so now, but it's, you know, because people assume, oh, cremation, and then I'm going to be a tree.
Speaker: So how can I make that happen?
Speaker: So tell us what be a tree cremation is to you.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Oh my goodness.
Speaker: It is such a complicated question.
Speaker: Unfortunately, how do I become a tree?
Speaker: And there are a lot of different myths and truths out there about it.
Speaker: However, it clearly resonates deeply with people or it wouldn't be coming up so often.
Speaker: That's kind of why we created Be A Tree Cremation, because I wanted to give people a viable path to get to that point and feel that connection.
Speaker: So what we do at Beatree Cremation is called
Speaker: water cremation or alkaline hydrolysis.
Speaker: And we're going to use water instead of fire to essentially mimic natural decomposition.
Speaker: It's water and alkali.
Speaker: We use a potassium hydroxide.
Speaker: And there's a special stainless steel vessel that a loved one is placed in.
Speaker: And over the course of anywhere between about 4 to 18 hours, our process is on the longer side at 18 hours.
Speaker: The body will be broken down into its most basic building blocks.
Speaker: So it's kind of like an alchemy of sorts.
Speaker: And at the end, we're left with two things.
Speaker: So we have the skeletal remains and those will then be processed and eventually given back to the family in an urn.
Speaker: with what we know as ashes.
Speaker: And then we also have this second really amazing thing that we don't get with standard cremation, which is this nutrient-rich sterile liquid.
Speaker: We call this water cremation.
Speaker: It's a byproduct of the process.
Speaker: while it's not considered remains in any way, we see it as really sacred because it has nutritional value.
Speaker: And that's what goes back to the earth.
Speaker: So we actually, rather than putting it down the drain, which is what
Speaker: many water cremation providers do and is a viable option, we actually land apply it at different land partners across Colorado.
Speaker: So you are able to go back to the soil, nourishing grasses, flowers, trees, you name it, whatever is in that landscape, you are nourishing.
Speaker: And for the folks that do want to be a tree in a more literal sense, we do offer that as well.
Speaker: If someone wants to have one single dedicated memorial tree,
Speaker: they can do that.
Speaker: We can plant a tree with those ashes or cremated remains.
Speaker: However, we do add a special neutralizing agent.
Speaker: So we have used Let Your Love Grow as well as The Living Earn.
Speaker: Both kind of have different processes for neutralizing the pH and the sodium levels and everything that can be in those ashes.
Speaker: and making it to where they will be nutritious and not harmful for the tree, which is the misconception that we get a lot, right, is that you can just kind of throw the ashes down or plant a tree right directly in those ashes and something would happen, but that's just not the case.
Speaker: And that's the thing.
Speaker: And it comes down to just pure science.
Speaker: It's not, you know, it's just a solution has to be added and then you become a tree.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Well, in our ways, but it's not just kind of this like easy piece of thing.
Speaker: And, you know, you also see like the tree pod pop up a lot.
Speaker: and go viral really every like six months or so I feel like that goes viral again and the tree pod isn't available and it's not real and so that's like make that clear capsule eye or whatever it's called is not real it is pure fiction
Speaker: It was a design, I believe.
Speaker: It was just a sort of a kind of an architecture, I think.
Speaker: But it's very similar to what was that one?
Speaker: Not obviously.
Speaker: So water cremation, alkaline hydrolysis, also known as resumation, bio cremation.
Speaker: I mean, it's kind of got a couple of different names.
Speaker: Yeah, it helps it in its marketing because I think that's confusing for a consumer.
Speaker: Also on the inside, no, and we understand.
Speaker: But then there was, oh my God, why am I, can I not think?
Speaker: I remember her name, Susan, and it was from Sweden, and she developed...
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: I can't remember the name.
Speaker: Good Lord.
Speaker: Anyway, she developed a system and like that, it was never a proven concept, but she was the queen of PR public relations.
Speaker: She just vetting it out there and like facilitating all this information.
Speaker: And I think she wanted maybe to do that to generate investment and stuff.
Speaker: but it never turned out.
Speaker: I know a company who tried her, what she was trying to do and I think the pig's ear just fell off.
Speaker: It was a vibration.
Speaker: It was a freezing of cork and then vibration.
Speaker: She did great with her publicity on the whole thing.
Speaker: So very interesting how all these little fake news items get out there.
Speaker: So here we have the actual how to be a tree.
Speaker: That's what we're just going to call this.
Speaker: How to be a tree.
Speaker: Full stop.
Speaker: End of story.
Speaker: So Emily, tell me.
Speaker: So there is...
Speaker: a lot of contention about water prevention.
Speaker: And I say a lot in that, like everything, you know, I think burial, well, burial has been around for so long that nobody questions it really, except for people who are sort of realise, A, we're running out of burial space and how bad it is for the environment.
Speaker: It just sort of took over and it's sort of now part of mainstream.
Speaker: And so will it ever get fully questioned?
Speaker: Who knows?
Speaker: So I think it is fascinating to me how any new innovation gets quizzed and pulled asunder.
Speaker: But here we are.
Speaker: So I will say two things and I just want your thoughts on it.
Speaker: So you've already told us exactly what it is.
Speaker: So what do you say to people who are kind of saying, oh, God, you know, now obviously you're not flushing it back into the water system, but there's this idea of flushing granny down the toilet.
Speaker: Now you're talking about gardening, I guess.
Speaker: So what say to somebody who's sort of like, oh, my God, that's hideous or like what's your comeback to that?
Speaker: You know, we...
Speaker: don't get that a whole lot when it's people who are actually sitting down with us or seeing our facility.
Speaker: Once they see it and really understand, a lot of that goes away.
Speaker: I think a lot of this can be just demystified by education.
Speaker: And, you know, it's we're never going to be for everyone.
Speaker: And that's OK.
Speaker: We certainly just want to give people a choice.
Speaker: And I mean, really, it comes down to some pretty simple factors for most people, which is it's gentle, not only on the body, but on the planet.
Speaker: You know, it's using a lot less energy.
Speaker: It's about 90% energy savings compared to a fire cremation, which is important to a lot of people in these times.
Speaker: And, you know, still getting the urn back.
Speaker: So a lot of times that's all people need to know.
Speaker: And again, I mean, that makes us really different is that we are returning it to the soil.
Speaker: And for a lot of folks, that kind of overcomes that factor of feeling itchy about it going down the drain or anything.
Speaker: However, it still has been tremendously successful, even when it does go down the drain in a lot of areas for people who have those beliefs of caring for the environment and wanting to leave a legacy that's in line with.
Speaker: the way that they live their lives, it's really appealing.
Speaker: And often for some of the times it's appealing for other reasons, like people who just love the water or people who are scared of fire or burial for some reason.
Speaker: And the thing is, it's not always logical why people choose what they choose.
Speaker: We can apply all the logic in the world, but I know my own mother, once she tells me she doesn't want to be buried, she doesn't want the worms to get her.
Speaker: Okay, mom.
Speaker: dead then she wants to be cremated because she'd be nice and warm but then she doesn't want to be cremated because what if she happens to be alive when she's getting her bed you know and so none of it is necessarily logical but I think that almost the wonderful thing about how we talk and express about death and honestly our fears as well
Speaker: you know, nobody wants to be buried a lot.
Speaker: And then you see the movies and, you know, these crazy shows and stuff.
Speaker: So and that brings me to another one is unfortunately, thanks to Hollywood, I think what water cremation faces as well is sadly serial killers, when they wanted to get rid of a body, there was always bath with the lime and dissolving the body.
Speaker: So again, it's these kind of images that are just placed in people's minds.
Speaker: Yes, absolutely.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And as you say, there are kind of those things and that scrutiny applied to anything that's new.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: it's not always super appealing.
Speaker: You know, there's an aspect of death that we have to face that's really uncomfortable and scrutinizing any kind of new method that comes out there is just kind of par for the course and like completely natural and normal.
Speaker: So yeah, I'm not caught up in it.
Speaker: And good too, because, you know, everything should be scrutinized and everything should, you know, have a certain level of standards that we all, if our loved ones are going to go through these process.
Speaker: And you know, water cremation applies to both, like every method of disposition, it applies to both pets and for humans.
Speaker: Do you operate with humans and pets or just humans?
Speaker: We only were humans at this time.
Speaker: However, it really got its start with animals and that's how it's been adopted by many people because oftentimes people will say, oh, I had a pet that had this process done and now that's what I want for myself.
Speaker: And so it is kind of opening a door to that conversation.
Speaker: But it actually started from like livestock, more of an agricultural setting back in the late 1800s.
Speaker: So it's actually a really old technology, which for you, well, it's been 1888, if you can believe it.
Speaker: Whoa, I didn't actually even know that.
Speaker: That's nothing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So we're grateful that, you know, over the decades and centuries, when really kind of slowly adopted first and like I said, more like livestock and then eventually more in a veterinary setting.
Speaker: And then finally kind of made the leap over into the human space through medical institutions like the University of Florida, New St.
Speaker: ELA, who would adopt it for their cadaver donation programs, where they would find that at the end of that process, when it was time to give the family the remains, this was a cleaner and more effective way to do that.
Speaker: So a lot of people that listen to this podcast are sort of students that are coming up in the mortuary field and both all over the world, actually.
Speaker: But we do have sort of some Joe public or Joe blogs.
Speaker: They have two nicknames off of this podcast.
Speaker: So talk them through exactly, if you don't mind, I know you've kind of talked us through a little bit.
Speaker: So the body is placed on a tray and placed in a cylinder.
Speaker: And can you just talk us through sort of
Speaker: exactly from start to finish in terms of, you know, without obviously going into too much gory details, but just giving us the science behind it, if that's OK, and how the water that comes out is so sterile and everything, if that's OK.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So kind of starting from the beginning, someone comes into our care.
Speaker: We don't do embalming or anything.
Speaker: So they will be just kept naturally in refrigeration leading up to their water cremation.
Speaker: If the family wants to see them or spend time with them, that is absolutely an option.
Speaker: So we'll set up time for them to do a viewing or what we call a witness cremation where family and friends can be present for
Speaker: the start of that process.
Speaker: So when it's time to start that process, we will remove any clothing, anything artificial, there were bandages or anything that needed to be removed because essentially the process can't break down anything that's inorganic.
Speaker: or even anything that's like plant-based, for instance.
Speaker: So if we have a family present, we actually use a natural wool shroud because it's an animal product, right?
Speaker: Whereas if we were to use even like a natural cotton, the alkaline hydrolysis process can't break that down.
Speaker: So it's really just animal products.
Speaker: animal proteins and material that can be broken down by the process.
Speaker: So we'll remove those clothing, the clothing, any kind of external things that need to be removed, and then they'll be gently placed into a permanent metal basket.
Speaker: We measure out potassium hydroxide as the alkali chemical that we use based on their weight, but ultimately it ends up being about
Speaker: 95% water and only about 5% of the alkali.
Speaker: And then they'll be just gently placed inside the chamber and it's fully closed and latched.
Speaker: And then it fills up with water.
Speaker: And that same water in our system heats up to just under 200 degrees.
Speaker: Our vessel does not exceed the boiling point, which is another common misconception is that we're boiling people, but that doesn't happen.
Speaker: It's just, you know, right up to that point because the heat helps accelerate the process.
Speaker: And that same water will gently circulate.
Speaker: And, you know, I can't fully explain the science of alkaline hydrolysis, but essentially what it does is it breaks everything down into our most basic building blocks.
Speaker: So at the end, the water that's left is just amino acids, peptides, sugars, salts.
Speaker: There's no DNA left.
Speaker: It destroys pathogens.
Speaker: And so that's how it's sterile at the end is because of the heat and because of the actual alkaline hydrolysis process that breaks everything down.
Speaker: And so that's how we end up with those two things at the end.
Speaker: So we're able to just take
Speaker: the skeletal remains out as well as any implants.
Speaker: So say you had a hip or a knee that comes out completely intact and we can send it in to be recycled.
Speaker: And the skeletal remains, they're broken down.
Speaker: The final breakdown is similar to formation as in it's put into a, and they're ground down into the ash form, right?
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So in our case, they do have to air dry for a couple of days.
Speaker: Once they're fully dry, we have the same equipment that any crematory would have to break down the remains into a powder-like substance that goes back to the family in an urn or can go on to something like parting stone or a turn of light to be made into something else.
Speaker: And so most people, again, another misconception, don't realize that with the ash from fire cremation,
Speaker: is also primarily bones and skeletal remains because everything else is burned away.
Speaker: So it is a very similar in composition.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And yes, so much more gentler on the environment.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah, by a lot.
Speaker: So I kind of come from the traditional funeral space.
Speaker: I'm not a funeral director, but I did work for a big corporation that owns and operates thousands of funeral homes.
Speaker: And I was shocked to find out
Speaker: the impact that fire cremation has.
Speaker: It's about the equivalent of driving 600 miles in your car.
Speaker: And so that's a lot of resources just to kind of treat your body at the end of your life.
Speaker: And I was also so shocked when I learned because I kind of came into it really not knowing anything like average consumer when I started in this industry, learning about the concrete faults
Speaker: that we place under the ground.
Speaker: And honestly, that's kind of was my moment of feeling this kind of sinking feeling in my stomach that my own loved ones like weren't actually back with the earth under the ground.
Speaker: Even if you're cremated in places, a cemetery, you're still in a vault.
Speaker: So sort of disconnect between nature was really what prompted me to start looking at other options.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so is Beatrice Cremation, it is your baby, you own it, you said you're not a funeral director, but this is your business.
Speaker: It is, yes.
Speaker: I'm, you know, really fortunate in one sense and not so much in another sense.
Speaker: I really created this out of a legacy of my own mother, who I lost to suicide when I was young.
Speaker: So because of that loss, I kind of had this curiosity and this openness around death that I don't think that I would have had otherwise.
Speaker: And also I had the means, you know, to create this business without having to go get investors and convince anyone that it was a good idea.
Speaker: So it's really a legacy around her death.
Speaker: Oh, well, that's amazing.
Speaker: And it's a very good legacy.
Speaker: As we said at the start, if you want to be a tree, which is what anybody's talking about on the Internet.
Speaker: So if your mom has started this forest as such, which is a lovely thing to have.
Speaker: Quick question.
Speaker: In terms of the process and alkaline hydrolysis, you're based in Colorado.
Speaker: So I'm here in New York, but state by state, obviously, for me, it's always the thing I would say.
Speaker: It's the most ironic thing about America is the United States of America.
Speaker: There's nothing.
Speaker: Yeah, so you're absolutely right.
Speaker: It is all on a state level.
Speaker: So what the guidelines are in one state could be completely different in another.
Speaker: In Colorado, for instance, when it was passed here in 2011, we just expanded the definition of cremation to include chemical dissolution.
Speaker: So there's not a whole like another set of guidelines around alkaline hydrolysis in the law.
Speaker: It's really just expanding what
Speaker: cremation is.
Speaker: And so I'm not aware.
Speaker: I think more the regulation would probably be more on the side of what goes down into wastewater treatment plants.
Speaker: So if it was going down the drain and how those remains are handled at the end of the process and that sort of thing and less around what happens to the water going back to the land and
Speaker: We are, for instance, registered as a fertilizer producer with our Department of Agriculture here in Colorado.
Speaker: So state by state might have different ways that that needed to be handled.
Speaker: But at the end of the day, it's an organic fertilizer.
Speaker: And so there's, you know, really only kind of so much regulation if you're treating it as you would treat a fertilizer, then you're doing what's correct.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it is very interesting state by state.
Speaker: As you said, it's extending the current vernacular around cremation.
Speaker: I'm not sure a state.
Speaker: There is different states where they're very specific that cremation must have a flame for it to be called cremation.
Speaker: And so therefore that.
Speaker: x's alkaline hydrolysis out but and then there's other people who are trying to work their way around that it's it's very interesting and it's to me it's also a little bit silly because it's just sort of anyway it's the law which I I'm glad it was never a lawyer but um it's just it is it's very difficult being in this industry in the United States because each state is different and yet you can drive sort of so easily from one to the other um but yet you know you may have to go out of state if you want composting for example
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Or what it might be because it's not legal in every state.
Speaker: And you may have to have your body taken to, you know, wherever you decide.
Speaker: So, yeah, it's very interesting.
Speaker: And I think it's a case of watch this space.
Speaker: I think it's going to change dramatically in the next five years, I would say.
Speaker: And I think it's honestly our methods of disposition, I think, is going to be the biggest changer.
Speaker: in the next decade.
Speaker: You know, there's we've been chatting with a few different really interesting people about what can change and will change.
Speaker: I think there's a lot more females coming into the business, a lot more innovation.
Speaker: But I think the key thing that's going to change is definitely the methods of disposition and how widely available they start to become very interesting.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: I think that the disposition methods are really, though, reflective of
Speaker: not just how we want to treat our bodies, but what's important to us as individuals.
Speaker: We're seeing that in the way that people are honored too, right?
Speaker: I'm sure that's why you exist and have seen this big opportunity because people are turning less to organized religion and they still want something sacred and meaningful.
Speaker: And I think that we're seeing that both in
Speaker: what funeral roles look like and yeah we treat our bodies it's just reflected in these different ways yeah 100 well emily thank you so much for being on the show and if anybody wants to see physically what emily was describing she has great videos on her social media
Speaker: So we'll leave all the links for it below.
Speaker: But yeah, the videos are great.
Speaker: You know, you've used some I've seen them on Instagram and stuff where you've, you know, you show people the unit that they'd be going into the, you know, and so I think that's important for people to it takes away the fear factor a little bit, I think.
Speaker: And people might love it and people might hate it and whatever, but at least they get to have, as you said, the choices there.
Speaker: So thank you so much for coming on the show and we'll stay in touch.
Speaker: We love it.
Speaker: Thank you, Jennifer.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: you
