Compost Your Loved Ones

Short Wave

NPR

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4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 2 January 2020

⏱️ 8 minutes

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Summary

There aren't that many options for putting your loved ones to rest. There's burial. There's cremation. Now, later this year in Washington state, it'll be legal to compost a human body. Soil scientist Lynne Carpenter-Boggs tells us how the process works and why she describes it as "beautiful." Carpenter-Boggs is also a research advisor at Recompose, a human composting company in Washington. Follow host Maddie Sofia on Twitter @maddie_sofia. Email the show at [email protected].

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:05.0	Today, a cheery topic.
0:08.0	Death.
0:09.0	Well, more specifically, what to do with human bodies after death?
0:13.0	It's not something lots of people like to talk about.
0:15.0	Even Lynn Carpenter Boggs, a soil scientist at Washington State University.
0:20.0	What is your feedback you've been given when you like talk about this at parties?
0:25.0	I don't often talk about this at parties.
0:30.0	My husband seems to like to just throw it out there and random audiences.
0:36.0	Husbands.
0:37.0	The it is a new way that people in Washington State can dispose of their bodies after their dead.
0:45.0	Compost it.
0:46.0	Yeah, it's not just for food scraps and leaves.
0:49.0	Composting human remains will be legal in Washington State this year, starting in May.
0:54.0	Lynn actually studied how to do this for a company planning to offer the service.
0:59.0	Even when there's a little bit of negative or just unfamiliarity with the idea,
1:07.0	once you start talking about how beautiful that this can be,
1:12.0	we see that there's a lot of people who are really interested in it.
1:18.0	So how do you do it?
1:20.0	Well, today in the show, Lynn Carpenter Boggs tells us about her pilot study
1:24.0	that took six donated human bodies and turned them into compost.
1:35.0	Okay, so I get it.
	...

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