Dutch company Loop Biotech’s Living Cocoon is a biodegradable coffin made from mycelium and recycled hemp fibers that can break down in roughly 45 days while helping return nutrients to the soil. The concept gained fresh attention after a 70-year-old woman named Carolyn became the first person in Australia to be buried in one.
What should happen to our bodies after we die? For some people, it’s an uncomfortable conversation. For others, not so much. Either way, there is one thing everyone has in common: sooner or later, the question becomes unavoidable.
Many people want to be buried when they die, sometimes with the idea of returning to the earth and, in some sense, becoming part of it again. Others prefer cremation, or want their remains placed in a family vault. Except for cremation, those options typically involve a coffin, usually made of wood, a material that can take decades to break down.
That is the problem Dutch company Loop Biotech set out to rethink.
Its answer is the Living Cocoon, a coffin made from mycelium—the network of filaments that forms the vegetative structure of fungi—along with recycled hemp fibers.
How many things can be made from hemp? Or fungi? We have already seen building materials, textiles, and plastics. But a coffin made from mushrooms and hemp is bound to get attention.
The idea is to offer a more organic, environmentally friendly approach to the decomposition process, not just for the human body, but for the coffin itself.
After death, a human body may take anywhere from months to years to decompose, depending heavily on the surrounding conditions. Bodies placed in wooden coffins may take between 10 and 30 years to decompose, while those buried in copper or bronze coffins can take even longer. According to the company, bodies …
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Author: Camila Berriex / High Times
