Colorado Company Offers Banana Coffins

DENVER — Casket makers catering to natural burials have offered biodegradable coffins made of such materials as recycled newspapers or cardboard. Ecoffins USA, based in Montrose, Colo., is selling caskets made of banana sheaves.

They take six months to two years to biodegrade.

Marketing director Joanna Passarelli says the company sold $40,000 worth of banana-sheaf or bamboo coffins to funeral homes last year.

At least 14 funeral homes around the country offer them.

"We either get an, 'Oh, my,' or, 'That's very interesting,'" Passarelli said. "Some people think it's a great idea. We've had funeral directors look at them and say, 'I guess you can go to hell in a handbasket now.'"

In natural burials, bodies aren't embalmed and eventually decompose into the earth.

Ecoffins USA is the sister company of The SAWD Partnership, which has helped fuel the "green" funeral movement in the United Kingdom.

Sax-Tiedemann Funeral Home and Crematorium in Franklin, Ill., has sold one banana Ecoffin since it started offering Ecoffins in the last several months.

Stephen Dawson, owner and president of Sax-Tiedemann, said it's not that far removed from the woven baskets funeral homes used in the 1950s and '60s to pick up bodies from hospitals and nursing homes.

Passarelli contends the bamboo and banana coffins, made in Asia, are better for the environment than the cremation process.

Her interest in ecofriendly coffins grew after her son's school showed the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" in which Al Gore warns of climate change. Her son came home wondering why he should bother with homework if the world would be destroyed.

"I said if everybody did one little thing it would have a snowball effect," she said.

Comments

[moonflowerjewelry]

why isn't someone making them here in the us vs. asia
oh, forgot, we don't manufacture anything here anymore.

[Ecoffins]

We make them in Asia because that's where the raw material is abundant.
We support communities by offering them a decent wage and decent working conditions, ie. Fair Trade.

[TFDNYC]

You're kidding, right?

[vinny]

you sound like a company representative...

why not at least make them in latin america?

[BannedNBoston]

Lets return to the old pine box with the ashes inside.
The pine box cant used by however needs it.

[Clairvaux]

In the Dune novels, the Bene Gesserit would bury their dead vertically without a casket. A tree would be planted on top. The remains would serve as fertilizer for the tree, and the tree would be a living memorial to the person.

Rather beautiful, I think.

[indy100]

Awesome idea. I love it!

[vinny]

that IS cool.

[kittyarmy]

Agree. Good idea!

[superfrog]

When I die i want my family to blindfold me put a big stick in my hands and bury me in a giant pinata.

[vinny]

weird

[Weirdwriter]

Orthodox Jews use very simple pine coffins, very inexpensive. Wonder how much these banana coffins cost?

[Ecoffins]

Price is comparable to a Pine Box. However we can't say they are kosher because we don't guarantee they are not made on the sabbath.

[TFDNYC]

Sweat shops operating under "Fair trade" don't get the Sabbath off? Say wha???

[XCITIZEN]

This is excellent. When my 61-year-old mother died from breast cancer, and she had not chosen to be cremated, but to be buried, we decided that her body be buried naked, un-embalmed, in a completely natural state, covered in a silk shroud, in an unvarnished, unfinished pine casket. The decision was made by her 3 children, together. Our ages were 24, 25, 27, and 28.

I have looked back on that choice in the intervening years, and it was one of the most comforting memories of that experience and time, without a doubt.

Rest in Peace, Mom!

[XCITIZEN]

oops, I meant her 4 children, was that a typo or a Freudian slip? No banana pun intended.

[indy100]

Sounds beautiful. We as Americans are so seperated from the complete cycle of life and death, and so disconnected from the earth.

[gcallaghan]

When I die, I want to go the old fashioned way - as food for something bigger

[PuzzledinPeoria]

Banana coffins.

Slick!

[NoblesseOblige]

I wonder if there is a manufacturer of these caskets called 'Banana Republic'.

[KinkyGirl]

I have instructed my family (those who will survive me) to donate my body to science or some medical school. Whatever suits them. Seriously.

[Chlowina]

Donating my body to science so they can find out what's wrong with me that the doctors can't figure out now while I'm alive.

[Gasparilla]

And you get your MDR of potassium.

[Tactical Grace]

A tiskit a taskit a condom or a basket

[bbriani3842]

Why just use old refrigerator boxes? Or did the neighborhood kids call dibs?

[bbriani3842]

Sorry. . .Why NOT just use old . . . .

[NYC07]

Your cruel, where would the growing population of homeless live ?

[sueinmn]

What good is a enviromentally friendly coffin when the vault is not? Cremation seems to be the best option. Funerals are for the living but economically cost saving factors are for the family! This banana thing cheap?

[StephBr]

Not sure. Cremation uses huge amounts of energy and releases a lot of carbon.

[Bert McDert]

Not to mention mercury if you've had any fillings. Also: natural burial wouldn't involve any vault.

[NoblesseOblige]

I hope these new and improved coffins come in the large economy size--for those who believe they can take their money with them into the next world. Just saying.

[10000Lakes]

Oh, I thought you meant 'large economy size' because we Americans are so unbelievably fat and poor. Most people have never even eaten a banana in years. I suppose they may as well be buried in one.