Go Green Even If You’re Dead: ARKA Ecopod

Posted on August 30, 2008 by Doug Gunzelmann in Health+Beauty

Ah sweet afterlife! We love eco-friendly death. There’s no excuses to not be green these days, even if you’re dead you can still minimize your impact. The Ecopod is a compressed recycled paper coffin designed by Hazel Selina. Hazel has been highly involved in natural birthing processes for much of her life and as the years toil past she has turned her focus to a pressing issue…death. The Ecopod along with the Acorn urn are made from 100% recycled paper and a natural earth based mineral hardener. They are completely biodegradable just like you (unless you’re pumped full of embalming fluids)! You can have your Ecopod silk screened with designs such as doves or a Celtic cross.

The AKRA Acorn Urn is made via the same process as the Ecopod.

The Ecopod comes in an array of colors, some fit for a pharaoh.

Tags:

coffin, Ecopod, funeral

15 Responses to “ Go Green Even If You’re Dead: ARKA Ecopod ”

Clark

31. Aug, 2008

Wow! What an innovative idea. It’s clear that the ‘green’ movement is expanding its bounds. I hope that we, as consumers, will take particular heed to support eco-friendly business models. For example, http://www.simplestop.net stops your postal junk mail and benefits the environment.

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design

31. Aug, 2008

That is amazingly cool.

And yes, I am morbid.

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Webroamer

01. Sep, 2008

OK this is truly cool, but why spend the extra doe to paint it- it is only going to get buried. I think that if this company is still around when I need them this is the way I’m going to go. (and then paint it myself)

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infidelnc

01. Sep, 2008

I really like the idea, but the pods look like a chrysalis…is this saying something about the afterlife?

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tina

01. Sep, 2008

love the shape and the idea - not bad

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zen

03. Sep, 2008

in the name of green…goes green even your are dead..nice idea

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Ghoast

03. Sep, 2008

Ok, great idea but…
when you get “embalmed” they pump you full of nasty and no good chemicals
then, once you’re in the ground they incase you in concrete…
so unless you can get around those things (and if you can, then awesome) then this isn’t going to make a difference

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GDM

04. Sep, 2008

Of course these are really only as green as the means by which the money used to purchase them was acquired, and then as green as whatever that money is then used to purchase and so on. This whole concept of ecoluxury is a sham. Also coloring and designing them is completely unnecessary and wasteful of whatever resources go into the process–it’s postmortem vanity.

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Uncle B

04. Sep, 2008

Corpses should go to the renderer’s and be made into bio-diesel. The bones should be processed into fertilizer and any other recoverables, such as hair and skin, should be processed into re-usable products. All of this should be done by a large multi-national corporation, subsidized by at least, the Bush administration, and owned and operated by ‘private’ international (Think Arab) big money investors. Bills preventing competition, based on Red tape bull shit and legalese should be lobbied for by the likes of Tom Delay and Abramson, and we should all applaud the clean efficient way the neo-cons have made even our death something they can give to their children, or squander on new body parts available only to the uber-rich , from live donors from China and India, on huge hospital luxury liners, located on the high seas and fully secured by the U.S. military. Why quibble? They have stolen our lives, the lives of our children and the future of the nation. Let them have our deaths also.

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ash

04. Sep, 2008

I think this is a really great idea and disagree with some of the criticism.

New products almost always go to the rich first, and though it’s a shame the really good ideas will trickle down. It’s the nature of the business and the person who put all the work into the idea has to pay the bills, too - it’s expensive to start something new.

Also, why not paint the coffin? Water and plant based paints can biodegrade right along along with the rest of it, and I doubt it has so much to do with “postmortem vanity” as the deceased’s loved ones wanting to celebrate the life with one final unique expression of beauty as a send-off. It’s what people have been doing since the dawn of humanity to help them cope and find comfort in the mysteries of death.

I applaud any effort to return the nutrients in our bodies to the earth rather lock it up in a coffin. This is a fabulous start. I’m just bummed I didn’t come up with it myself - it would have made a killer senior thesis project

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Gwawdiwr

04. Oct, 2008

This is actually a pretty poor idea. Far better to bury the dead in plain wooden coffins - takes an awful lot less energy to make them than these papier mache monstrosities. [Go and google for the embodied energy in paper if you disagree - you'll find that it takes about 20MJ to make 1kg of paper, but 1kg of wood takes less than 2MJ to grow/harvest/process. When they break down, the impacts are comparable. So plain wood is clearly a better option.]

The point made by the person who wants to render the dead to make biodiesel from them also fails to take account of the lifecycle costs. If you really wanted to recover the energy from people, I would suggest that anaerobic digestion is a better option - you can then use the dead to give you carbon-neutral biogas plus an organic fertiliser. However, I imagine that societal conventions will get in the way here - it’s possibly a bit taboo

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Site's linking to this post:

design weekly » Ecopod - Go green even if you´re dead

09. Dec, 2008

[...] Samenkapsel, welche den Samen in die Erde freigibt und der Kreislauf des Lebens von neuem beginnt. http://greenupgrader.com/3361/go-green-even-if-youre-dead-arka-ecopod/ [...]

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Ecopod… el ataúd ecológico « x0v

20. Dec, 2008

[...] Ecopod, diseñado por Hazel Selina, un ataúd fabricado 100% con papel reciclado….. vía > greenUPGRADER [...]

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greenmob.com.mx » Verde hasta la Muerte! Ecopod

22. Dec, 2008

[...] TheGreenUpgrader Written by Mel in: Conciencia Social [...]

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Umweltfreundlicher Designer-Sarg Ecopod

13. Feb, 2009

[...] Nach dem Tode gleicht der Mensch des 21. Jahrhunderts einer Sondermülldeponie, doch nicht nur der Mensch sondern auch der Sarg ist zumeist nicht so umweltfreundlich denn schließlich stammt Holz von Bäumen und die müssen bekanntlich abgehackt werden. Ecopod hingegen bietet einen aerodynamisch geformten Designer-Sarg (schließlich wollen wir ja in den Himmel) der unseren Tod nicht zur Sünde gegen die Umwelt werden lässt denn er besteht aus gepresstem Altpapier. Zu Allem Überfluss sieht ein solcher Sarg deutlich besser aus als die düster und antiquiert wirkenden Kisten aus Holz. Via greenUPGRADER. [...]

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