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A Biodegradable Urn Promises to Turn Your Ashes Into a Tree

None of us knows where we go after we die. But as overcrowded cities run out of real estate for cemeteries, interest in leaving a smaller footprint even in death grows. Designers have been experimenting with innovative solutions to help the citizens of Earth grapple with the still taboo-ridden subject of how to dispose the remains of the dead. Those who opt for cremation might leave it to their loved ones to scatter their ashes in a meaningful place or launch them into outer space, or they choose to haunt the living with urns awkwardly placed on shelves. But thanks to an innovative, poetic, and slightly bonkers product from Estudi Moliné, with a little help from our loved ones, we can choose to be reborn as trees.

In 2013, the Barcelona-based design studio invented the biodegradable Bios Urn, which allows you or your loved one’s (or pet’s) ashes to be mixed with soil and a seed that will grow into a maple, pine, gingko, beech, or ash tree. In 2014, they sold more than 17,000 urns to people around the world who liked the idea of coming back to semi-life as a tree.

Now the company is winding up a successfully overfunded Kickstarter campaign to manufacture a new product to facilitate the delicate first six months of tree growth, the Bios Incube, which the company calls “the world’s first incubator for the afterlife.”   

The incubator is a contemporary white pot made from cellulose, peat, and coconut shells that holds the urn plus soil and extra water, allowing you to nurture your budding tree on an urban balcony or a backyard for its first 6 months of life, at which point it can be replanted.

A smartphone-controlled app monitors temperature, light, and water levels to reassure and hand-hold those who are tending to the tree. A built-in irrigation system allows the tree to sustain itself for 20 days if you need to go on vacation or lack a green thumb.

“Bios Urn changes the way people see death,” the studio writes in a project description, “converting the ‘end of life’ into a transformation and a return to life through nature.”

Learn more about the project on Kickstarter or in the video below:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_eye/2016/03/28/bios_urn_from_estudi_moline_promises_to_turn_your_ashes_into_a_tree.html