Coffins from mushrooms sprout between environmentally friendly funeral options

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Since more people take care of their ecological footprint in both life and death, a cemetery operator offers a unique alternative to traditional burials – coffins and urns from fungi.

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The Mount Pleasant Group, which offers burial and cremation services in the greater Toronto area, says that the fully biodegradable products from the Dutch biotech “a new era” represent in sustainable burials.

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“It is produced within seven days and is a product that is environmentally friendly, it is completely 100 percent natural,” said Angie Aquino, the company's president for funeral services.

She said no wood, metals or chemicals are used to make the coffin called Living Cocoon or the urn earrise, and “considerably less energy” is used in the production process.

The products consist of only two natural ingredients: mushrooms known as mycelical and hemp fibers, said Aquino.

“They are mixed together and are placed in a shape, and this form over a period of seven days becomes firm and robust, and then it does it,” she said in a telephone interview.

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Aquino said that the mushroom box can be used biologically and also in the cremation within 45 days of burial in ideal weather conditions.

According to Mount Pleasant Group, his consumer research showed that 50 percent of people want environmentally friendly funeral products, and 65 percent believe that funeral companies should offer their customers these options.

The company has two natural graves – one in Brampton and one in Pickering – in which corpses are buried in a way that has only minimal environmental impacts without dividing or using traditional coffins.

The Green Burial Society of Canada says on its website that the country's first natural burial site in Victoria, BC, and “a growing number” of the municipalities has since established environmentally friendly burial areas in existing cemeteries or independent natural burial sites.

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Juliette O'keffe, a senior scientist at the National Collaboration Center for Environmental Health, said that she also had the public interest in sustainable funeral options and environmentally friendly opportunities for the disposal of human remains, seen the subject of one of her published article.

She said she didn't know much about mushroom base burial products because they are still “quite new”, but she came across technology while she was doing research.

“In my understanding, it is a natural material, so it is from natural sources like mushrooms and breaks off the content of the urn or coffin faster,” she said in an interview.

“It recycles this material that is better in the ground than something that is manufactured. It takes a long time to deteriorate in the environment and may contain chemicals.”

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Abigail Brown, director of marketing, communication and public relations at Mount Pleasant Group, said that the company had decided to add the mushroom box and the urn to its list of offers after it had seen a growing interest in sustainable burials.

“It is a wonderful option for people who want to be as thoughtful about sustainability and care on the planet like when they were alive,” she said when they were moss next to the sarcophagus -like, cream -colored mushroom box.

“The nice thing about what happens while they are biologically on the ground in the ground is that they return nutrients into the ground, vital nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen that enrich the soil … they add to earth,” added Brown.

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O'keeffe said that people who are interested in alternatives to cremation and traditional burials are available to have several options that can have a significant impact on the environment.

In green or natural burials, human remains are placed in a biologically degradable coffin or easy cloth, without refurbating liquids or a tombstone at the grave.

“With these processes there is a very low environmental footprint,” said O'keeffe.

There is also a process in which human remains are used in an alkaline solution to dissolve the body's organic materials, said O'keeffe. In some parts of Canada, the practice is legal, including in Ontario.

She said another approach was human composting that is illegal in Canada, but people have learned more about it in recent years.

However, she added: “Every disposition process has a kind of environmental impact.”

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