Season 1 Episode 12: Body Composting; A New Frontier!

Thanks for joining Hospice Nurse Penny and Halley (Hospice Social Worker) on the journey to #NormalizeDeath! Our guest is Katrina Spade. Katrina developed the concept of human composting while earning her Master of Architecture from University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2013. She went on to invent a system that transforms the dead into soil and founded Recompose, a company based in Seattle, WA which offers the service to the public. Recompose led the successful legalization of the process in Washington State in 2019 and began providing the service of human composting in 2020. Human composting is now also legal in Oregon, Colorado, Vermont, California, New York, Nevada, and Arizona. Katrina and her team have been featured in Fast Company, NPR, BBC, and the New York Times. Katrina is an Echoing Green Fellow, an Ashoka fellow, and a Harvard Kennedy School Visiting Social Innovator. Her TED Talk has been viewed over 1.5 million times. www.recompose.life; IG: @RecomposeLife; Twitter/X: @RecomposeLife Thanks for joining Hospice Nurse Penny and Halley (Hospice Social Worker) on the journey to #NormalizeDeath! You can reach us at [e-mail], on all places you find podcasts are found. A video option can be found on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@DeathHappensInsiders Hospice Nurse Penny on the socials: @HospiceNursePenny Halley on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook: @HospiceHalley Our intro music was composed by Jamie Hill (misfitstars.com)

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
- What we created at Recompose Seattle is
called the threshold vessel.
And we call it the threshold vessel
because it's very much a doorway.
It is a way to pass a bodythrough from the gathering space,
which is our serene,somewhat chapel esque space
that we've created for services on site.

(00:20):
And then at the end of the service, family
and friends place, thebody, often place wood chips
and straw and flowers, andmaybe moss from a favorite hike.
Or sometimes once it was ahamburgers from a local hamburger
place, I think therewas pizza placed once.
A lot of times folks will playsome love letters, you know,

(00:41):
anything that can decompose naturally.
And then that body with all
of its organic material isplaced into the threshold
vessel when the door is closed.
That's, that's sort of themoment of transition, the end
of the service and the passingon of that person's body,
which goes into the next room, which is
where the composting occurs.

(01:09):
- Welcome to The Death Happens Podcast,
an insiders Guide to Dying.
We're your insiders.I'm Hospice Nurse Penny.
- And I'm Halle Hospice social worker.
- Today's guest is Katrina Spade.
Katrina is the founder of Recompose,
a body composting facilityin Seattle, Washington.
We are so excited to talkto her about all the things

(01:32):
that you have to do to turnthe human body into compost.
- Yeah. But before we do that,we're going to transition,
and we talked a little bitabout this in our last episode.
We're gonna go from hot topics to more
of an educational platform,
and of course we'll haveindividual episodes next season,
and even one at the end wherewe, it's just me and Penny,

(01:54):
and we educate you on a,
a broader topic in a little more detail.
But for these episodes with guests,
we're still gonna do a littlebit of an education piece.
- Right. That's becausewe are the insiders
and we wanna give you the inside scoop on
hospice, death, and dying.
So today we wanna talk aboutthe levels of care and hospice.

(02:14):
Specifically, we wannafocus on continuous care.
- Yes. So it, it is funny
because it is a little bit of a hot topic.
It's come up for you.I know you've done an
episode on TikTok about that.
Um, and it's also comeup in the social worker
Facebook group for hospice,which is interesting.
Just this week. So I'mhearing these rumors
that some organizations,

(02:36):
some hospices are telling their employees
that they're not doing continuous care.
We don't do that. Mm-Hmm.
- . Right. So inmy organization we do do that,
but we shy away from it quite a bit.
Uh, we know that we have to offer that.
It's, it's part of theMedicare requirement.
To be a Medicare licensedhospice agency, you have

(02:58):
to offer continuous care.
So continuous care iswhen somebody has symptoms
that are not being managed wellat home for whatever reason,
sometimes they need tohave an infusion started
or just made many changesto their medications
and frequent assessmentsby a skilled nurse.
We are, uh, able to offer continuous care,

(03:19):
which is an eight hour period of time,
minimum within 24 hours.
It does not have to be eightcontinuous hours. Mm-Hmm.
, it can beblocks of, uh, four hours.
Four hours or two, two and four.
And it can also incorporatethe hospice aid.
And although the Medicare conditions
of participation are a littleblurry on the guidelines for

(03:40):
that, they basically say
that the hospice aid servicescannot be 50% or more.
It has to be less than that.
So they're a little bit, it'skind of a gray area, but,
but it can includehospice aid care as well.
Mm-Hmm. , one ofthe reasons why many agencies
do not offer continuous care,
speaking from experience fromthe agencies I've worked at,

(04:01):
is that it is extremely difficult to staff
for continuous care.
Mm-Hmm. , youhave to have nurses on standby.
And that can be very costly.
If you're a small agency
and you're paying nurses to be on standby,
that can really startto impact your finances.
And because hospice isn't very,

(04:23):
they don't pay a lot. ,
- It's not reimbursed very well.
- Yeah.
We're not reimbursed very well.
It's, it's really a challenge, especially
for small agencies.
- So I think this is a littlebit more behind the scenes,
and maybe we can getinto this in next season,
having a longer discussionof all the levels of care.
Um, I think it is importantfor people to know,
because it's not like it's a state secret.

(04:44):
We, it's out there. It'sfor the world to see.
You can look these regulationsup, but it is bothersome.
I totally understand,especially coming from a smaller
agency, that it is very difficult.
But to say, and to put out to your staff,
we don't even offer this Mm-Hmm.
. It's notlike, Hey, this is hard.
Try to avoid it or Right.
Try to get ahead of it and be preemptive

(05:05):
and try not to get someone into a place of
needing continuous care, becausenone, none of us want that.
Right. The clinicians don't want that.
The families don't want that.
The patients still don't want that.
And so, like you said,it's, you're in a place
where you're needing thatconstant nursing care for x amount
of hours to get symptoms under control
while you're still in the home.
- Yeah. And since, um, peoplemight wonder like what kind

(05:28):
of symptoms would need to bemanaged, I can give an example
of a situation where we didcontinuous care for my patient.
And, and really it was, uh,a little bit of a challenge
to be able to pulltogether the right staff.
I actually did most of it during the day,
and then float nurseswent and saw my patients,
and then we grabbed anLPN out of the office, uh,

(05:49):
who was working ourmedication desk, you know, uh,
getting orders from doctors.
And we pulled her out andsaid, go home and go to sleep
because you're gonna comeback, back tonight and con
and do this continuouscare for my patient.
Uh, but she was agitated.She was a younger woman.
She was in her parents'home. She was very agitated.
We were giving her allkinds of medications to try

(06:09):
to get her agitation under control.
And we ended up needingto do palliative sedation.
And the medications that we were giving
weren't sedating her.
So we just had to keep escalating on
what we were doing for her.
And I did talk to them about another level
of care we offer called,uh, GIP General inpatient,
sending her to a hospice carefacility and or a hospital.

(06:33):
Or a hospital. And thefamily was absolutely adamant
that she was not gonnawant to go anywhere.
She wanted to die in theirhome. Mm-Hmm. .
And so we, you know,we did what we could do
to get everybody in there thatwe needed to get in there.
And we did do continuous care.
- Yeah. I mean, I think it's important
to say it's pretty rare.
I, I think even thoughin our organization,

(06:55):
there's certainly never been a question
of whether we would offer it or not,
but it's pretty rare that it's needed.
The challenge is that you dohave certain diseases that just
are a real bitch.
Mm-Hmm. . Andthen you have instances where,
you know, family orpatients may be a little
reluctant to get ahead of things.
And then once you startchasing symptoms Mm-Hmm.

(07:16):
, it takes a whileto get it back into control.
- Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes.
It's, it's better to stay on top of things
or to stay ahead of thingsthan it is to try to, to go
go on top and squish 'em down.
It's harder to, harderto manage those symptoms.
So, yeah. So, well,
- As much as I've lovedtalking about hot topics,
I actually really lovethis education piece.

(07:36):
It's, I think it's our passion. Yes.
And you can, I think you can tell, even
as we're talking rightnow, it's like, I'm excited
to be bringing this information to people.
Yeah. So I'm excited about next season,
especially incorporating that more.
- Yep, me too. Alright, solet's get to our guest today.
- Let's do it.- Hello
and welcome, Katrina, I'mso happy to have you here.

(08:00):
I was so impressed with the speech
that you gave at the NALconference last fall.
I was just fascinated by your story
and what you do at Recompose.
So why don't we start with you telling
us a little bit about yourself.
- Sure. Let's see, I am this, I'm the founder
and CEO of Recompose.

(08:20):
I'm also a parent to two teenagers. Um,
- Been there.
- That's probably harder than- . Yeah. Right.
Today. That feels importantto say for some reason.
Um, and actually they've, they've been
with me along the whole journey,most of their lives anyway,
of coming up with this idea
and putting it out into the world.

(08:41):
So though they can bechallenging, I, I thank them
for their cheerleading .
- Well, happy Mother's Day a week ago. Oh
- Yeah.
Thank you. Yeah.
- Thank you. I, I just have tosay, I have a, a belief about
teenager dumb, you know,we love our kids so much
and they turn into teenagers so
that we can feel goodabout kicking them out

(09:01):
and letting them flyon their own. .
- Yeah. Someone justtold me the other day,
I'm gonna get the part of the brain wrong,
but like, you don't thinkof yourself as a parent.
You think of yourself aslike a loner, frontal cortex
or whatever to your kids.
Like, you're just, you'rehelping them out by loaning them
that piece of brain

(09:23):
- About.
Right.
- So you do,
you have a degree inarchitecture, is that right?
- That's right. I wentback to school a bit late.
I was 31 or 32,
and I finally realized
that like I was doingdesign work on my nights
and weekends as a hobby,
but I didn't have a particularcareer at that point.
So my mom kept urging me togo back to school. So I did.

(09:47):
And, and that's wherewhat Recomposed came out
of was that design study.
- So recompose, body composting.
Tell us about the process.
- Well, well, before you getto process, I'd love to know,
do you prefer body composting?
Terra? I've heard different, oh,
- Yeah, yeah. That's a good question.

(10:08):
- Of what this is called.- Definitely prefer body
composting, or humancomposting is the phrase
we use that recompose.
We've, um, come around, you know,
thinking about different words.
And the legal term is naturalorganic reduction. Oh.
Which is a mouthful and greatas a legal term, .

(10:29):
But in the end, you know,what we've found is anytime
the media picks up thestory, which is, anytime
that happens, it's greatbecause we wanna share
that this option is available.
They're gonna say human composting,
so we can call it whatever we want,
but in the end, it's very accurate.
Also. It's a very accurate term.
And we do at, we compose,we like to be clear
and accurate whenever possible.

(10:50):
I love that. So right
- In our- Vein, compost, it's sticking.
- Yeah. .- So, so
where did the word ation come from?
And who, who uses that?
- Yeah, that's one of our competitors.
And it's, I believe it's trademarks,
so I can't even use it. Oh,
- Whoa.
Oh, there we go. I didn't knowthat. Interesting. That one.
Oh wow. Well, I, I likebody composting too.

(11:11):
'cause I, I love the direct, like,
let's not try to sugarcoat things.
Let's be, it is what it is.And so what is it, ?
- Great question.- I know what it's,
- Yes. So
- People listening.
- So my, this, my sort offavorite high level thinking about
what human composting is, is it's taking
what happens in nature,say on the forest floor,

(11:35):
all over the world, deadorganic material, your sticks,
your leaves, your chipmunksare decomposing naturally
to create top soil.
And in nature, that takes a while.
And it happens, you know,with the moisture of the rain
and the breeze coming through,
providing oxygen to the microbes.
What human composting is, istaking that natural process

(11:57):
and using our human ingenuityto speed it up a little
and to monitor
and keep it a very well run process.
So composting, any kindof composting is a human
run, run process.
Natural decomposition iswhat happens in nature.

(12:17):
Composting means humans aregetting their hands on it
and are making it happen even better.
Or even often that means faster.
Sometimes it just meansmore consistent. Okay.
So if you think about human composting,
if you're imagining what'shappening in the, for,
on the forest floor withyour sticks and leaves
and chipmunks, recompose isplacing a body into a vessel

(12:38):
with wood chips, alfalfa and straw.
Hmm. You can think ofthat. Plant material.
No chips, no chipmunks.
- . - Although we canplace ashes from cremation,
including pec cremations. Ah, oh,
- There- You go.
Sort of like perfectchipmunk adjacent. Yeah.
- .- So all you know, we've, uh, over years

(13:02):
tailored our recipe to bethe perfect mix of carbon
and nitrogen materials.
Again, that's wood,chips, alfalfa, and straw.
And it's essentially playingthe role of the sticks
and leaves and pine needles in the forest.
So we lay a bed of that material,
place the person's body on top of it,
and then cover it with more of the same.
So in that vessel, you arecocoon in plant material. Hmm.

(13:26):
And not a whole lot ishappening besides lots
and lots of microbialactivity in, in that vessel.
Recomposed provides air to the microbes
through a basic fan system.
And then about a week into the process,
we rotate the vessel slowly
to make sure everything is mixed up
and the air can, oxygen is critical so

(13:47):
that the air can reach everywhere.
But other than that, we'rereally creating the perfect
environment for nature to do the work.
- I love it so much. I,yeah. So fascinated by this.
I'm so millions of questions. Okay.
So do they go in there naked? Naked?
I mean, I would think ifyou put 'em in clothes,
the clothes are gonna break down

(14:07):
and it's gonna kind ofcontaminate the soil.
So do they, are they in there naked?
Can they be if they wanna be, or,
- I, I had this feeling that
that would be your first question.
- .
- Um, so when we receive a body at Repose,
and by the way, um, our facilityis in Seattle, Washington,
and about 30% of our clientscome from out of state.

(14:29):
So receiving a body might mean someone
drives you from nearby.
It might mean we've pickedyou up at the airport
because your family has sent you from
pick a place anywhere in the country.
When we pick bodies up,
of course they are inall sorts of outfits.
We then, um, change theminto a basic linen shroud

(14:50):
for their, their time at Recompose.
And after we've placedthe body into the vessel,
the last thing we do before we close
that door is we take the shroud off.
So indeed, you, you are composted Oh,
as naked as the day you were born.
- I think I'd wanna go that way.
Anyway, , I like theidea of being in there. Yeah.
It's funny because as a child, I used

(15:11):
to think being buried would be horrible.
Like being under theground would be terrible.
And, um, so I definitely anadult do not wanna be embalmed,
and then I lean towards cremation.
But now as this body compostingis gaining in popularity,
and I live in Washington state, I'm,
I've told my husband like, Iwant to be composted. Oops.

(15:31):
- I'm glad to say wecan help you with that
- .
Yeah. Some. So, uh, so once the, the body,
how long does it takefor the body to compost?
- So it takes, everybodyis different. Mm-Hmm.
, it takes between two
and three months start to finish.
- Okay. Okay. And then how much,
so then when it's all composted,
then obviously there's stillbones left in there. Correct.

(15:53):
- So not, not quite midwaythrough this process between
actually at about 30 days.
So about a month in ourteam removes soil and bone
and non-organic.
If you have a titanium hip
or something else Oh, from the vessel.
And then we have a stage wherethe non-organic are recycled.

(16:14):
We reduce the bone mechanically.
So all the way down to like, it's sort
of like a sand like material,
because if, you know, cremationremains our crushed bone,
but they're powdery more like,
because composting is adifferent kind of quality.
And to be honest, it has alot to do with the moisture
that remains reduced.

(16:35):
Bone is very sand like, so
that sand like bone getsreincorporated with the soil.
And for the next couple ofweeks it's curing in a larger,
a different container, essentially.
- Okay. You're- Not gonna be,
there's three phases. There's
- Phase, you're not gonnabe ready for this question.
. I bet I whenyou, when you open the box
to take the bones out, whatit does it smell bad? Hmm.

(16:58):
- Well, that is the numberthree question, I guess.
No, naked usually comeslater. . .
That's usually number two.
No, it, so the,
the amazing thing aboutcompost is if it's done right,
it should smell good.
Now there are, I wasobsessed with the odor

(17:19):
of this at the beginningof the design process.
I mean, obsessed with itbecause I thought if I'm gonna
propose that peoplecompost their loved ones
and then anything in theprocess smells bad, we're gonna,
that's gonna be a verytough sell, essentially.
Mm-Hmm. . Sosome of, I mean, again,
a good composting processhas microbes so active

(17:39):
that there's not a lot of chance
for bad odor to be produced.
That's number one. And we'recon like, like I said, we're
highly managing thisdecomposition process.
Um, during the in vessel time,
we also have a prettyextensive biofiltration system.
So the air that we're pullingthrough the vessels is running
through an extensive biofiltration system.

(18:01):
And a lot of that is becausewe started in Seattle,
the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency
is extremely rigorous for both Mm-Hmm.
, like any kind
of gases which we don'tproduce, but also for odor.
So we actually got to startwith the most rigorous like,
odor agency in the country, which is great
because now we've got the system

(18:22):
that knows how to handle odors.
You know, there, I would saythere might be periods during
that vessel time when youwouldn't wanna open it up
and take a deep breath.
But , by the time the process this,
this composting has completed in,
at the mid stage, it's smelling good.
- Okay. So I kind of cut youoff before you finished this.

(18:43):
'cause there's more stages it sounds like.
So you grind the bonesup, they go back into,
and you've moved now the person
or what's left of them intoa different vessel, right.
With the bones in there.Mm-Hmm. .
And then what happens after that?
- So about two to four weeks of curing.
Curing is a compost term.
It means drying out and themicrobial activity completes.

(19:06):
Hmm. And so what we see,
and you know, I hadn't mentioned this yet,
but one of the indicators to us
that this is all workingwell is temperature.
Oh. So if you've everbeen around a compost,
like have you ever seen a mulchpile steaming in the winter?
Yes. Yes. That's
because heat's being createdby microbial activity.
- Yeah.- We place a body into

(19:28):
ambient temperature, plant materials.
The body's been cooled almostalways in cooled storage.
So it's at maybe like50 degrees Fahrenheit,
48 degrees Fahrenheit.
The plant material mightbe 65 degrees Fahrenheit.
Six to 12 hours after we'veplaced the body in the vessel,

(19:49):
the temperature readout
inside the vessel is about150 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Wow. And that- Spike tells us that, again,
we've created this perfect environment.
The microbes are getting their,
they're getting their work started,
and we see this, thisspike in temperature.
And then by law, we need to see it hover
above 1 31 degrees Fahrenheit for

(20:11):
three full days consecutively.
- Oh,- That's, that's,
- I have 10,000 questions right now. Have
- 10.
Okay. .
- Okay. By law, was thereeven a law before you existed?
- No, we helped make the law. That's
- Amazing.
- Yeah. Thank you,. So it exists now.

(20:32):
In fact, uh, last week I went to Maryland
and I was part of the governor's signing
of the Ninth State Bill. Woo.
- Wow. That's awesome. That's amazing.
- Yeah. So it's quite, it's quite quick.
I I, I have some really goodfriends who've advised me on
the legal front, and one ofthem in particular, Tanya Marsh,

(20:54):
she's a professor of like,cemetery and funeral law.
And she's helped me fromthe beginning with all this.
And she was like, no.
Part of me thought you'd haveeven three states, you know?
Yeah. This, this soon, this is quick.
There is, there's a lot of interest. Yeah.
- You're the OG though. Yeah.You're the first one, right?

(21:15):
Yeah. I mean, you in thecountry are the first
one who did this.
Right? That's, I
- Have a theory, if youwanna know about, about
how ideas work,
- Actually I have to give,
because I'm like, I'm thinking,
how in the hell did yougo from architecture Yeah.
To bio. Yes.
And yet, I do know a littlebit about that from, from
what you said at the conference last fall.

(21:36):
And I was just fascinated.
So, but yeah, tell us. Tell us. Okay.
- So let's see. So first of all, I,
there's a great book calledBig Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert.
She wrote, eat, pray,love, which I don't know
that I've read that one, but, okay.
- You've heard of it. ,
- She also read, wrotethis book called Big Magic.
And the concept of big magic is
that ideas are their own entities.

(21:58):
And they're out there in the world.
And sometimes one lands on you
and you go like, oh,that's really interesting.
I have the energy and theinterest in moving this forward.
And I really, I think ofhuman composting as that.
Like, I'm pretty certain,
so farmers have been compostinglivestock for decades now.
And I'm certain that manyof them have thought,

(22:22):
what a great process I should do.
You know, someone shoulddo this with humans.
So I don't think I was the first person
to consider the idea,
but when it landed onme in graduate school
for architecture, I was like, cool.
Like, let's ex let's explorethis concept and that.
And it was great. I, beingin architecture school,
and then I had the luxury of time to

(22:42):
think about what I would want.
And I did start
because I was like, I don'treally wanna be cremated
and I don't wanna be buried,
so why isn't there anything else?
Mm-Hmm. . And asI started to think about that,
and look at the Americanfuneral industry as this system
that humans have created,
and that's why it's relatedto architecture at all,
is it's like .
It's not a building, but it'slike a system that, you know,

(23:04):
like that humans have created.
And I started to think aboutthe need in urban settings
for something that wasn't cremation.
'cause we can't have burialvery easily in urban settings.
There's not enough land, can'thave natural burial even,
which I think is perfect process.
But you need land. So what's,
what do you do with those billions of

(23:24):
- People?
I have land. You have
- Land. I have four's,
- 40 acres.
. I have 40 acres in the mountains.
And I'm always like,why can't, but now I can
because I also have a garden.
And I've told my husband thatthere, you know, he needs
to get me composted andI'll be in my garden
- .
There you go. So I guess, yeah.
So I found out about livestock composting

(23:44):
as I was doing all this research.
And it was quite an epiphany moment.
I was like, oh, that's, that'sgreat. I love composting.
I mean, I grew up, myparents are avid composters.
I grew up knowing about the process
and kind of considering it tobe really important for just,
just like an obvious thing to do.
Not human composting, butgeneral composting. Mm-Hmm.
. And then whenI found out about livestock

(24:06):
composting, I thought thatseems like something we could
appropriate for humans.
And so that was the exercise.
And thinking from there on was like,
what, what do humans need?
That livestock don't what,what should come with a new
disposition option?
And that, for me was as importantas the technical was like,

(24:28):
okay, what else are welacking with cremation
and conventional burial today?
What do people, I mean,
honestly it was pretty personal at first.
It was like, I don't wanna goto a funeral home. Me. Yeah.
What else is there? What would I design
if I could start from scratch?
So anyway, this idea that I got
to have land on me was somethingthat I had the energy for.

(24:49):
And importantly that I,
I would say the worldhad the energy for too.
Because had I tried to do it 10 years
before, I think everyone would've been
like, no, that's weird.
Just, no. But there's climate change,
there's like such an awarenessof the need for new ways
of looking at everythingfrom a climate perspective.
And then I would say in your,

(25:10):
I'm sure like a perfectexample of this, there's this
appetite to think aboutthe end of life more.
Mm-Hmm. , yes. Intentionally.
And so then now people,
when I pitched humancomposting in the early days,
people were like, ohyeah, I would want that.
Versus like, no, wow.
, which would've happenedI think 10 years earlier.

(25:30):
- Yeah, I think so. I agree.
That's your timing wasreally good with that.
So, uh, where do the microbes come from?
Are they just naturallyin the filler ingredients
that you're putting in ingredients
that you're putting in with the body?
Or do you introduce any kind
of microbes into thecontainer? The vessel,
- They're on us as we speak,

(25:50):
but the cool thing aboutthese microbes is they won't
break down a live person.
And actually for the, Idon't know what percentage
of people are afraid of beingcremated or buried alive,
but it's a pretty seriousfear if you ask me.
Mm-Hmm. .Mm-Hmm. .
Um, for those people, we can assure you
that if you get placed in avessel with a bunch of straw
and wood chips, you'lljust have, take a nap.

(26:13):
There's air flowing.
You might be a little itchy, I think,
but , you, you willnot, you will not die.
- That's, that's a good point.Tat phobia. Tpha phobia.
Yeah. I, I just did a videoon that on TikTok tpha phobia,
, the, the fearof being buried alive.
And people used to putbells in their coffin
and shovels and everything else.

(26:34):
So yeah, if you're afraidof being buried alive,
be body compost.
But okay. So let's sayif you're alive in there,
are you able to like bang on the lid?
Oh yeah. And people will comeand get you, you out .
- Oh yeah. And our team wouldrun over and be like, our,
- And I'm guessing thathas never happened yet. No,
- It has not.
That'll be a whole different story.
My goodness. Yeah. .

(26:55):
- Okay. So what do youdo with the compost?
I mean, I'm guessing that'swhat you call it, right?
Like if they're cremated,it's called cremains,
but if they're composted,it's, it's compost.
So how much compost is produced
and then what happens to that compost?
- Well, because we haveto use a large volume
of plant material, we areproducing around a cubic yard of

(27:17):
com compost per person.
That's a lot. That's three feet by,
three feet by three feet.
It's several hundred pounds. Mm-Hmm.
- .- And, and that's been one
of the really interestingdesign challenges.
So I, I used to go, like, afterI came up with the idea, but
before it was legal, and Istill do, sometimes I would go
to different elder living facilities

(27:40):
and I'd say like, give a presentation.
This is what I'm trying to do.
What do you think, you know,is it interesting to you?
And then this one person,
I just remember giving thispresentation being like,
and then we'll create abouta cubic yard of compost.
And Linda Wolf in theback row raised her hand
and she was like, Katrina,my family does not want
that compost , so wegotta figure something out.

(28:01):
And I was like, oh, okay.
So what recompose has iscalled our land program,
and we partner withnonprofit organizations
that are stewarding land
and doing like eitherconservation restoration
or some sort of rewilding
or a combination of all three as part
of their nonprofit work onland in Washington state.

(28:25):
And so if your family says,I'd like a little bit of
that compost, but not all ofit, you can donate the rest
to our land program and it willgo on not to a specific tree
or a specific plot or a specificparcel, but into the forest
and part of the work.
And you get to really returnto nature that way. Wow.

(28:47):
But you know, about halfof our families come
and they pick all of it up from us,
and we bag it in these nice,like top soil size bags
and easy to move around.
And that's okay too.
- Okay. So I used tohave a composting toilet,
and you know, when you'recomposting with a toilet,
it specifically says you can'tuse that compost on anything

(29:07):
that's gonna be grownfor human consumption.
So you can't really put it on your
vegetables or anything like that.
Are, is human compostable to be used on food,
fruit trees, you know,vegetable gardens or, or not
because of any kind of, Idon't know, bad bacteria
that might still exist? ?
- Yeah. So there's thetechnical answer to that,

(29:28):
and then there's the,what we recommend answer
and the technical answer is the pathogens
that are harmful aredestroyed by the temperatures.
We are by law required tomeet those temperatures.
And operators also haveto do compost testing
of batches when they open.
They do the first yearof every single batch.

(29:51):
When they, then, when they'resuccessful in that year,
it steps down to like monthly batches.
But, but we send out to a third party
to test for pathogen load.
So this is much more rigorously attended
to than your composting toilet.
Right. That makes sense.
And so the technical answeris, it wouldn't harm you,
but the, but the practical answer
and the sort of alsorecommended answer is, look, um,

(30:13):
we recommend you don't putthe compost on tender annuals
because we should bewashing any compost off
of lettuces and stuff like that.
But we might not get all ofit. You don't wanna eat it.
I mean, we don't recommend eating it.
Um, any compost for that matter.
So what we love to sayis like, put it on trees,
including fruit trees, put iton perennials, ornamentals.

(30:33):
There's lots of use
- In the forest.
Yeah, yeah.
You don't wanna be s snackingon a piece of your loved one.
No. It just happento get in your lettuce salad.
- The reality is likethe, the media I used
to say it would be totally fine.
Yeah. And how cool.
So full circle, and thenpeople got so distracted by
that concept, you know,it just took this idea
that's already a littleweird and it went like over

(30:55):
here. And then
- Tell me, you're talkingabout Idaho right now.
Tell me, oh, you're talkingabout ridiculousness,
- But yes, that's, that's the
- Best level about cannibalism in Idaho.
- what?- So back I know Katrina.
I know, you know, there's no
way you don't know, you tell it.
So back in February there was a big thing.
So apparently Idaho, I don't know, they,

(31:18):
they have their own weird rules,
but there was a lawmaker that
was bringing back up theirantica cannibalism law statute.
- Okay. - And law reworded.Yeah. Having it reworded.
I actually wrote it downso I wouldn't get it wrong.
So it says, I heard aboutWashington State was going
to be doing human composting,

(31:38):
and that disturbed me,I wanted to address this
because what I didn't wannasee was bags of compost
with human bone fragments.
- Wasn't there, you know, audio
- Can't see my face right now, but well
- Wait, it was,- Wasn't there a body composting place
recently that lost the bodies too?
- Oh no, that was not, that wasnot a body composting place.
That was a, they calledthemselves like a natural funeral

(32:02):
home of some sort, butthey didn't do composting.
- Oh. Like a green burial place?
- Like a green burial place.
And I don't even know ifthey were doing anything
besides cremation.
But that was, that wasin Colorado, right? Yeah,
- I think so. Yeah. Yeah,
- Colorado.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Alright, so
did we cover everything about the process?
Because I wanna ask youabout, I thought you gonna
- Say zombies? Um,

(32:22):
- ,- Probably not.
- So, 'cause I'm really curiousabout the cost, you know,
the cost of body compostingversus cremation versus
natural burial or green burialversus traditional burial.
I know funerals can bereally fucking expensive. So
- Yeah.
So high level, we'rerecomposed, human composting

(32:45):
is probably never gonna be as inexpensive
as your direct cremation
because if you think of adirect cremation, number one,
it takes about four hours or so.
Mm-Hmm. .And it's very, um, yeah,
it's takes about four hours and,
and composting someonetakes two to three months.
So you just consider that timeframe.
And it, it would be,I don't know what kind
of corners you'd have to cutto get that to that cost,

(33:07):
you know, maybe a thousanddollars for a direct cremation.
Then on the other side you'vegot burial, which I, it's hard
to find a number thatincludes a plot at a cemetery.
But actually I would say like 15,000 is
where you're gonna bestarting for the total cost
of a conventional burialand north of that.
And then to add a little more context,

(33:29):
I believe the averagecremation with a service is
around $6,000 in the us.
So you've got this huge range of costs.
Recomposes service thatincludes all of the paperwork,
death care, death certificate,pickup of the body, all
of the, you know, storingand caring for the body,
and then through the compost process

(33:50):
and includes donation if theychoose to a land partner, all
of that costs $7,000.
- So I think that's prettyreasonable, actually.
I mean, and also I think peopleare really leaning away from
cremation, you know, it is bad
for the environment as we know.
And there there's a lot ofconcern people raise about

(34:12):
maybe their ashes beingmixed with someone else.
I'm, I'm always seeing stufflike that, you know, like
their ashes get mixed with somebody else.
They didn't clean it out good enough.
They gave you the wrong ashes back.
You know, , there'sa lot of concern there,
which is probably all false,
but the, the, um, I think the cost
to me sounds pretty reasonable for Yeah,
- I mean it's a, for that it's a,

(34:33):
it's a significant cost, no doubt.
Any kind of funeral care,
as you said. Mm-Hmm. ,
- Yeah.
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah.
- Wow. We do have a, um, a community fund
that we're really proud ofwhere we support folks who can't
afford the whole service, canuse that com, that fund to,
to get up to a certain amountreduced, you know, almost

(34:55):
- All of it reduced- Actually.
- Really?- Yeah. And so what we, we rely on,
like our merch sales
and contributions from people like in lieu
of flowers can go intothat community fund.
So we acknowledge that it's expensive
and try to help folks who can't afford it.
- Wow. That is, that's really cool
that you have that available.

(35:16):
Halle, do you have questions? I'm,
- I have so many questions.
I'm trying to even rememberwhat, when I wanna start with,
because I know we have only a limited
amazing amount of time with you. Well,
- What,- Go ahead.
- I was just gonna say, it'stoo bad we can't show pictures
on here because I saw thepictures, the slides of,
of the facility and it's really beautiful.

(35:38):
And I remember youtalked about how you kind
of incorporated your architecturedegree into the design
of the facility itself,
and that you had a name for this portal
that you put people through or something.
Tell us about that. Sure.
- Um, first of all, I think partly
because I personally believedesign is important for

(35:58):
how we move through, youknow, moving through the day
and our experience
of especially big eventslike someone's death.
But also because it occurredto me that if I was trying
to bring an idea thatmight feel a little bit
sus, if you will,
- ,- Human composting to the public, having

(36:19):
that be designed with care, the idea
is designed with care is important.
And so, for example, ifyou go to our website,
I hope it's okay to say it's recomposed.
- Absolutely. Yeah. And we'll put the link
in the show notes too. Cool.
- So, yes. Um, if yougo to our website, it's
www dot recomposed life.
You see images of soil and plants,

(36:41):
but soil is kind of thestar of the website,
but it's beautifully shot,you know what I mean?
So it's like, mm-Hmm., we're not saying,
it's not euphemism.
So we're not saying, oh,this is just about, you know,
a tree or something like that.
We are saying this is aboutthe soil, that creation of,
of new life through soil.
So, um, mm-hmm.
thinkingabout design has always been

(37:01):
important and franklyjust a pleasure of mine.
So luckily incorporating ithas been important for the,
for the company as the movement as well.
But what we
created at Recompose Seattleis called the threshold vessel.
And we call it the threshold vessel
because it's very much a doorway.
It is a way to pass a bodythrough from the gathering space,

(37:24):
which is our kind of serene,
somewhat chapel esquespace that we've created
for services on site.
And then at the end of the service, family
and friends place, the bodyoften place wood chips and straw
and flowers and maybemoss from a favorite hike.
Or sometimes once it was ahamburgers from a local hamburger

(37:47):
place around
- The body.
I really hope it was dick's. It was
- Dick's.
- I was gonna say yes. Was it dick's?
- It was Dick's.- Amazing.
- I think there was pizza placed once.
A lot of times folks will playsome love letters, you know,
anything that can decompose naturally.
And then that body with all
of its organic material isplaced into the threshold vessel.

(38:09):
And when the door isclosed, that's, that's sort
of the moment of transition,the end of the service
and the passing on of that person's body,
which goes into the next room, which is
where the composting occurs.
- And it is beautiful. I'veseen pictures of that facility.
It's just lovely. Mm-Hmm,
- , thank you.
We welcome you to comevisit. We give tours. You

(38:30):
- Can sign up on our website- For
- A tour.
We're gonna wanna do that.You're gonna wanna do
- That.
That I would love to talk about.
Just so people know,
because of course there arethings that are just exemptions.
So what are some obstaclesto choosing composting?
- There are a couple ofreasons you would not be a
candidate for composting.

(38:51):
One is if you've diedof active tuberculosis.
Oh no, I think yes, you're, you've died
and you have active tuberculosis.
The second is you have Ebola,
which is a very highlytransmissible disease.
And I think that that I, Ishouldn't, don't quote me here,
but I think that might've been
because when the regs were being written,

(39:12):
there was some fear, extra fear of Ebola.
Mm-Hmm. I think it mighthave an extra careful
regulation that was tossed in there.
And I think the general thoughtwas not very many people are
dying of Ebola right now, right here.
So it's okay.
But I'm not entirely certain
that one was necessary,but I'm okay with it.
. Um, next is a prion disease.

(39:33):
So like, um, I never pronounce it right,
but like, Kretz Ya cofieldYako. Thank you. Yeah.
- .- That is a type of disease that hasn't
yet been proven to bebroken down by composting.
Okay. The nice thing aboutthe process in general is
so much research has goneinto livestock composting
by agricultural institutions

(39:54):
and like departments ofecology that we have this body
of research that really does tell us
how well composting works
to break down hormone harmful pathogens.
As a side note, when there'sa outbreak of avian flu,
those birds are typically composting
because it is great atmanaging highly pathogen,

(40:14):
you know, high deadly pathogens.
- Great. How about covid?
- Covid is broken down bythe composting process.
We take care at our, our course,our service team takes care
to not get covid in general.
But you might heard, have heardthe saying as hospice folks
that like a live body is moredangerous than a dead one.

(40:36):
Typically. True. Yeah. You know, you
- Mm-Hmm, . Yeah.
- So we, and- Are there any medications?
I mean, we live in a statewith medical aid and dying.
Is there any concern with medications?
- So two things or ortwo items about that.
One, if you have a radiationseed implant in your body when
you die, we have to remove it.
Or, uh, not us. A medicalfacility would remove it.

(40:57):
And then we have to hold ontoyour body for about 30 days
before it's okay to be composted
because you don't wantradiation in the compost.
- Makes sense.- But with most pharmaceuticals,
so going back about dosix years, we did a pilot
with Washington State University.
This was to show that theprocess was safe and effective

(41:19):
before we took it to the legislature.
And we had six people donate their bodies
to us for that pilot.
This was before it was legal commercially.
And so we were doing adonation pro program.
You can, so I got to meetseveral of them before they died.
I believe it was three
of those folks actually did use the death
with dignity, um, medications.

(41:39):
So we were able to track,
because we knew exactly
what they'd ingested onthe last day, we were able
to track those medicationsthrough the whole process
and test how much wasin the result compost.
And we found a 95% reductionin pharmaceuticals, which
to be honest with you isa little bit of a bonus
because most of the harm, uh,

(42:00):
or pollution, if you will,of pharmaceuticals has to do
with our waterways andour, honestly our toilets.
Right? Mm-Hmm. ,right. So, mm-Hmm. Medicare
isn't gonna solve that.
But it was nice for us to see
that human compostingindeed does take care
of those pharmaceuticals.
So same with, you know, cancer drugs
or anything where you think, God, this is,
this is toxic compostis an amazing mediator.

(42:23):
- And my last exclusionary question,
I promise I'll get into happier topics.
Is there a weight limit?
- No. And not at recompose.
It was very important for us to have,
when we don't charge more forlarger bodies, we do have a,
um, larger vessel for bodies,
I think over three 50,or we have two of them.
So, but we don't charge more.Wonderful. Anything like that.

(42:43):
It was important to us to be
- As a larger body.
I appreciate that. . .
- No, that was a early discussion.
We wanted to make surethat no one felt different.
- How long have you been composting bodies
and how many would yousay that you've done?
Or like, what's your annual average or
- We just crested 400 people.

(43:07):
Composted. Nice. So that'skind of a neat, um, milestone.
And we have 34 vesselson site at Recompose,
and we have space for 54.
So as we get closer to thatmonthly, or you know, month
and a half average
of 30 people will in willincrease our vessel capacity

(43:28):
by putting more vessels in.
And we're seeing uptickevery month, you know,
and I think mm-Hmm.
for me, Ithink the biggest challenge,
it's not that people aren'tinterested in having this
for themselves, it'sreally that they don't know
that it exists now.
Right. And that, for example,
recompose is a full service funeral home
and you simply call us.

(43:49):
Yeah. Either, you know, ifyou know someone's dying,
call us a couple daysahead or a week ahead.
You can definitely sign up for pre,
which is our pre-arrangement, .
Um, or you can call us on theday that someone has died.
But I think a lot of it ispeople are like, oh yeah,
human composting, that'ssomething I'd want.
And oh, I've heard that's happening,

(44:10):
but that doesn't alwaystranslate to when someone's died.
I can just pick up the phoneand actually have the service.
- Well, yeah, because you know,
in hospice we always get thename of the funeral home.
That's what we ask themabout. Who's the funeral home?
It wouldn't have evenoccurred to me that, you know,
the recomposed facility would
be considered the funeral home.
Yeah. Because you're a social worker.
So you think of all of that stuff.

(44:32):
- Yeah. I'm just looking- Our book. You're in our book.
- Yeah. I mean, that's oneof the things we've tried
to do is like, what is the method that
by which hospice folksare sharing options.
Oh, it's a physical book.Let's get in that book.
Or maybe it's digital book for,
- For us it's a physical book.
I don't know. That's every agency.
- For my agency. It's a list, but,
and I will be making sure,
because my agency Iwork for is very large.

(44:54):
Yeah. I won't say who it is,
but we cover a lot of territory.
And so I'm going to be, nexttime I'm at work making sure
that whoever updates thatlist for our social workers,
I will make sure that youguys are listed on there.
'cause I think it's amazing.
And, uh, I wanna try tosee more people doing this.
Thank you. I'm all aboutkind of like the, the legacy

(45:16):
that we're leaving for our,I'm from the boomer generation,
you know, so wasteful and .
I wanna make sure that the,that the land that we're leaving
for our kids and our grandkids is
not gonna be polluted. You know? I
- Do.
- Mm-Hmm. . And Ijust, so, I love the idea of,
and plus like I said, I'm a gardener.
I, I'm a gardener and I love gardening
and compost is my jam. Nice.

(45:39):
- If you had a compostingtoilet, you know, compost,
that's like, that's like next level I'd
- Say.
I don't have it anymorebecause, so it was in our cabin
and when we vacationed there, it was fine
to have a composting toilet
because it would compost while I was gone.
And we'd come back and it,
but when we moved to ourcabin, then it was like, yeah,
this isn't gonna work because you have

(46:00):
to have a period period of time
where you're not using itin order for it to compost.
So then we went to outhouseand now we have septic systems.
So we actually live in a morenormal world now. .
- Well, I wanna make surewe give you the opportunity
to tell us anything likea fun or interesting
or unusual circumstance that happened

(46:23):
during your experience with this.
- Well, the Dick's Burgers- On the front end,
on the back end, whatever.
Unusual request. Maybe
- Dick's Burgers though.
I mean, that's pretty good. Love it.
- Yeah.- That was, let's see.
Well, I, I you mentioned gardening.
Penny and I, I kind ofwanna mention, well, so
I love when people can donate
to the nonprofits andhave, and that's great.

(46:46):
I love that. And one ofmy favorite stories was
of this person who died, who,
and I, I talked about this atthe Endo conference actually,
when he died, his sister came
and picked up all of hiscompost from up from us
and then brought it back to his house.
And all of his neighbors camewith five gallon buckets.
He was a big gardener. They were gardeners

(47:07):
and they just all got someof Wayne's soil, you know,
and they all took itback to their gardens.
And I just, I love that concept
'cause it's, you stay inthe city where you live
and you stay with the people you love.
And you're part of that landscape.
And it's, it doesn't have
to be precious either, necessarily.
Like, it's just a, a like aweaving of, of you and your life

(47:27):
and your death, the landscape.
So I just love that story so much.
- And it really is nextlevel green funeral service,
because like you said,green burials require land,
which we're trying tosteward into the future.
And this really is the, the better,
more green way to even do that.
- I think green burial's kindof perfect if you've got land,

(47:49):
if it's in a rural setting, like Sure.
It's, it's a little simpler.
It's, it's totally usingnature in a beautiful way.
But I do like Yeah,
like what's the urban equivalent?Hopefully it's composting.
- Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
- Well, I mean, you can't,I have 40 acres in the,
in the mountains herein eastern Washington,
but couldn't be buried on our property.

(48:12):
It's not legal. So you'restill ending up in a cemetery
somewhere, even if you do a green burial.
Mm-Hmm. . So to me,
the composting is thebest way to be able to
stay on my land forever.
- Well, obviously you'reexpanding into, you know,
other states and youhave the capacity to grow
where you are in Seattle.

(48:32):
What else do you see in thefuture, either for recompose
or just for this greenmovement of options?
- Well, we're really, we'rereally responding to a lot
of enthusiasm and interestfrom all over the globe.
And so one of the things that's been so
fascinating is finding out
what locations are interestedin composting beyond the us.
So there's no, no lawsthat have been changed yet

(48:56):
beyond the us but we've gota lot of interest in, like,
for example, Australia,
who knew Australians wouldwant human composting.
But we were talking to folksand we've spent a lot of time
and effort on our system,developing that out,
developing out the client experience.
And so we're, we're lookingactively looking for partners
who want to open up afacility in their location

(49:21):
with the help of recompose as partners.
And I think expanding thatway is gonna be the future
for Recompose in the next couple of years.
Hopefully you'll, you'll see that.
Because I don't wannabe just a niche option.
You know, we don't wanna,we like to go mainstream.
I think that's totally feasible
- As fast as you're growing.I think so. .

(49:41):
- Yeah. So how, how, howlong have you been open?
- We started operating in December, 2020.
- Wow. 2020. So not even fouryears in and already 400.
Yeah. Bodies composted.
- That's great. And ninestates. That's incredible.
- In nine. Now are, are youthe nine states, are they,

(50:02):
are these different facilities
or are you opening recomposed
facilities in these other states? Well,
- The states are tricky a little bit.
So some of them have funky laws,
like New York State isa little challenging
to open a facility in some of them.
Like California though,the bill passed in,
I think it was 2022 or 2323.

(50:25):
The law won't go into effect until 27
because the regulationsstill have to happen.
Come on, . So it's, soeven though we celebrate very,
you know, hard this, theselegalization moments,
they're not always, there's usually a
regulation period that follows that.
So it's not like we could justopen everywhere right away.
And to be perfectly transparent,
it costs quite a bit to open a facility.

(50:46):
Oh yeah, I bet. And so someof it's us figuring out how
to get that capital, you know, how to, how
and when to open the next facilities.
- Yeah. Your facilitymust be pretty big, right?
You have to have kindof a warehouse. Yeah.
Do you stack the vessels andforklift them up and, wow.
So fascinating. Mm-Hmm.
, I'm so, sohappy that you were willing

(51:08):
to be on our new little podcast
and share all your information. Big
- Moment, big magic moments. Yeah.
- Yeah. It's, it's so awesomewhat you're doing. Well
- Thank you for having me.
It's really fun to speak with.
It's so nice to speakwith hos hospice folks.
You're, you're well aware, wellaware of all the challenges

(51:28):
and the, you know, ups anddowns of death, air and
- Yeah, definitely.
Definitely are. Is there anythingelse that you want to add
that we missed or, Hmm.
- I mean, I encourage peopleto sign up for our e-newsletter
and if you're excited, you canbecome a pre composed member.
Um, and yeah, I mean, we needpeople to spread the word.

(51:51):
So any talking to friends
and family about what you want is,
is it's hugely powerful. Yeah.
- Yeah. Now, now Halle canget on her soapbox. Yep.
. Hey Holly,
you gotta ask the social work question
that you like to ask her. Yes. Katrina,
- Do you have your advanced directives?
- I do.- Yay. Right. Yay.

(52:11):
- Please.- Do you have your
- Pre composed ready?
- I do. I'm paid in full.
In fact, with pre I was the first
member, which seemed fitting
- Of course, ,- I was looking into that.
I probably, I probablywill do that at some point,
but I honestly am alittle bit superstitious,
which I shouldn't admit this
because I always say thathospice patients who are afraid

(52:33):
to get into a hospital bed,
'cause they think it'll make them die
faster, are ridiculous.
But yet I am worried if I go ahead
and pay for my oh, my burial option,
I might be asking for it.
- Wow. That is super. Imean, I'm, we've got all,
it's okay. You know,
- We'll have to work through that.
Mm-Hmm.

(52:53):
- Yeah. I'll do,- I know
you've, I know you've already said
- Your website.
I'll got a payment plan.If I do a payment plan,
then it's like I can't, can'tdie before the payment are
- Completed.
So that's, we've got, we'vegot payment plan starting
at a hundred dollars a month. So you Yeah,
- That's what I need to do.
That'll, okay. Allright. Yes, your website.
Tell us again your website.
- Okay. It's www recompose life,

(53:18):
LIFE life.
- Alright. And what about thesocial? Where can find you?
- Yeah. Oh yeah. So they can,
we're on social media at Recomposed Life.
So like Instagram X, uh, Facebook,
and I'm Katrina Spade.
One word. You can find me too.
- TikTok,- You haven't come to the dark side
of, we're not on TikTok

(53:39):
- Yet.
We don't wanna do it half as, so
we don't have the capacity to do it.
Well, unfortunately So we're, we're waiting
and now it's like, let's just wait
for a minute and see what happens.
- Fair. Yeah. Wait and wait
and make sure it, it stays around .
- Well, thank you so much Katrina.
It's been just a joy talking to you. Thank
- You. So nice.
- So appreciate you coming on.

(53:59):
- See you Penny. And yeah, take care.
- Alright, thank you. Oh, shewas such an exciting guest.
- She was one that I waslooking forward to having on
so much because I just,she blew me away at
that conference last fall.
- I am sad. I didn't getto hear that conference
and I thought, I thought I knew things

(54:21):
and then she started talking
and I'm like, I need toknow all the things .
- I know, I know, I know.
And, and she spoke for only20 minutes at the conference
and, and she covered avariety of things, topics
regarding the body composting,
but there was still so muchmore that I didn't, that Yeah.
That I didn't know. And it's,

(54:41):
- You asked great questions. I'm glad
- It's fascinating.
Well, you did too. You hadsome really good questions.
. I love the exemptions.
I, that didn't even occur to me.
I never even thought like,oh, there might be people
who can't be body Mm-Hmm.
Composted for one reason or another.
And it sounds like there aren'treally a lot of exemptions.
- It sounds like It's pretty rare.
And I think some of the other ones do have

(55:03):
a little more exemptions,especially on the weight limit,
which, the reason I think ofthat, of course is I have had
that issue with, um, full body donation,
whole body donation andhaving a weight limit.
So as the social worker, I'mthinking about when I'm talking
to patients and families,what are your options?
Well, there may be somethat you don't have,
so let's not waste time on those.

(55:24):
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just love it.
I, I just think it's great
and I have already told myhusband where to take me,
and I just need to sign up
for the pre compose on a payment plan
so I won't cause myself to die faster
by planning my own burial
- .
I know I need to get on it.
I'm gonna wait till I getfinished paying off this new bed,

(55:44):
and that'll be my next monthly cost.
- Then you'll pay offyour, your, um, final bed,
your final resting place. Exactly,
- Exactly. .
- All,- All right. Until then, remember to live,
- Because someday we will all be dead
and we might even be dead
and in a box being composted by microbes.