Mushroom Suits, Burial Pods and Other Thoughtful but Ultimately Useless Green Burial Innovations, Part 1

​A few years ago, when Ecopod caskets—made with feathers and recycled paper—were making news, I had a call from a writer for National Geographic wanting to know if we using any innovations her readers might find interesting. I said we were using caskets made with locally sourced recycled wood, shrouds out of organic cotton, and were hand digging graves. We used locally sourced native plants to re-vegetate the grave, including rare plants, one Federally Endangered. She said “Well, actually, I was looking for something more exciting like those Ecopods.” The fact that Ecopods were manufactured in the UK , shipped here (presumably by specially trained flocks of butterflies to avoid the carbon footprint) and cost $3,000 did not seem to register.

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