New product companies fill real needs with style

New product companies fill real needs with style

Side by side with this public front are an equally dynamic group of forward-thinking business entrepreneurs and artisan-manufacturers. Some are producing attractive biodegradable burial vessels made from natural and recycled materials, while others are pioneering natural burials by starting modern "eco-cemeteries" around the world, dedicated to modeling the perfection that a natural "heaven on earth" might look like if it were here.

The most progressive of the bunch are actually re-inventing the business from the inside out, taking existing cemeteries (rather than pristine land that ought to stay no-impact) and converting them to sustainable cemetery management techniques so that the process is accessible to everyone, even those in densely populated urban areas that don't use cars!

These companies and individuals are doing for the industrialized funeral sector what organic farmers and food producers have done for the agricultural arena in the US and across the world when they first began to serve an unmet but very real consumer demand for clean food, while working to change the conventional practices of a huge industry whose techniques have had a detrimental environmental impact.

And new natural grave goods are stimulating a renaissance in the once-thriving weaving arts: Recycled paper and alternative fibers are made into caskets and coffins. Handcrafted woven items are making a comeback in the form of willow, bamboo, sea-grass and other woven-fiber containers, while fabric artists fashion imaginative shrouds of organic cotton, silk and hemp.

Unique new burial vessels like the Ecopod recycled paper coffin,  SAWD's Fair Trade certified bamboo, Somerset Willow's artisan-crafted homegrown willow "basket caskets", FTP's seagrass, hyacinth and banana leaf, Eco-coffins cardboard coffins, and the ARKA Acorn ash-burial urn appeal to environmentally minded folks who want to depart from life as naturally as they’ve lived it.

Each year, more natural versions of traditional funeral goods are coming onto the scene - it's hard to keep up with them all!  Many of the manufacturers and distributors are working hard to bring people the information, services and products needed to make even their final act a positive and self-reliant one.