What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future - Are You Ready to Be Composted When You Die?
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 16 October 2022
⏱️ 33 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
The idea of composting a human body may seem unsettling—or even gross—and it runs counter to the normal American funeral rites of embalming and internment, which preserve the body. But advocates say it’s a greener and more peaceful way to return our bodies to the Earth.Â
Guest: Eleanor Cummins, science journalist
Host: Lizzie O’Leary
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Transcript
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| 1:07.6 | What is teramation? Well it's also known as human composting, and here at Return Home we gently |
| 1:13.7 | transform human remains into life-giving soil. I was wondering if you had spent any time on |
| 1:20.5 | Return Poms TikTok page. I have a little bit. They're very I'm passionate about it, so they've |
| 1:26.3 | sent me quite a few directly. Elner Cummins is a science journalist. She recently wrote about the |
| 1:33.1 | human composting movement and one of the companies returned home at the forefront, which has a |
| 1:39.2 | pretty dynamic TikTok page. Today's question is does human composting require the use of worms |
| 1:45.8 | or bugs of any kind? And I've got the answer. The answer is no, by the way. I asked Elner |
| 1:52.0 | how accurate she thought the TikToks were. Having been inside the facility and seen some of this |
| 1:57.5 | a little bit closer, I think that they're pretty accurate. And I think that that is a real break |
| 2:02.4 | from tradition in terms of the way that the funeral industry has typically related to public education, |
| 2:07.9 | which is like we're not going to talk about this at all in any way ever, including if directly |
... |
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