No More Coffins – These Organic Burial Pods Turn Cemetery Into A Forest

Not everyone can get fired from a cannon, and not everyone wants to be buried in a coffin. Capsula Mundi, a project from Italy, is the penultimate hippie solution for burial: an organic pod for the deceased that has a tree planted on top of it. So instead of gravestones and crosses, a forest of trees would stand in a cemetery. The pods are made from starch and other organic, easily degradable materials. The tree can be chosen before, uh, departure. In the end, it is hoped that cemeteries of this kind would be like parks and forests. The people working with this project seem to be very enthusiastic about this idea, going as far as calling them "sacred forests".

"Since man has been able to express himself through writing, the tree represents the union between the earth and the sky, material and immaterial, body and soul. The vegetable world is an element of contact among us, complex organisms, and the mineral world, are sources we cannot get nutrition from." The initiators write on the website. "To make a coffin nowadays you cut down an old tree, of valuable wood. A coffin has a short life spand [sic] and is a product of our society. The growth of  a tree needs from 10 to 40 years and a coffin is used for three days." It does make a point: coffins aren't made from bamboo and weeds, so they consume valuable old trees. And here, a person can choose what tree they want planted over their final resting place.

Choose oak. Get your grandchildren to make oaken shields out of it, plunder and pillage.

More info: capsulamundi.it | Facebook (h/t: boredpanda)