Life After Death? Maybe as a Tree

Barcelona brothers say Bio Urns solve a host of burial problems
By Elizabeth Armstrong Moore,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 18, 2017 1:05 PM CDT
Company's Urn Idea: Turn Loved Ones Into Trees
The Bios Urn works with as much or little ash from a person's cremains as the survivors want to use.   (urnabios.com)

Whether you want to be buried or cremated, critics see two major problems with our modern burial process: We're running out of space for our billions of remains, and we're polluting the planet in the process. Inhabitat, for instance, calls modern burial downright "toxic." But a new company in Barcelona has launched the Bios Urn, a $150 biodegradable urn that stores a loved one's ashes below a seed in soil and transforms those remains into a tree, reports Quartz. It notes that a cemetery in Quebec has become the first to dedicate space to trees from the urns. And in Vermont's Green Mountains, one man's remains sprouted an oak tree, which his son says would have been "a dream come true" for his dad.

For those without outdoor space or any tree-planting savvy, the brothers behind the company have also thought up the Bios Incube, a $450 wifi-enabled indoor planter linked to a network that regulates growth and waters automatically. On the Bios site, the brothers write that these systems "offer users an alternative for remembering deceased persons in a natural, sustainable fashion," and that death becomes "regeneration." TreeHugger is a fan of the idea, noting that do-it-yourselfers can obviously do something similar without spending the money, but the specialized urn makes it easier. (Here are a few truly strange ways to immortalize yourself once you're gone.)

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