Biomaterials, Ecology, and the Culture of Death: An Alternative Way to Approach Burial?
Reframing Burial and Ecology
Burial practices can be reshaped to reconnect human death with the natural world, turning mortality from something feared and hidden into a moment that restores life. This need feels especially urgent in the United States, where embalming, cremation, and mass-produced caskets remain the norm despite their environmental costs and growing conflict with today’s increasingly widespread values of sustainability and regeneration.
In this context, biomaterials -- living or biodegradable substances like mycelium and kelp -- offer a different way forward. They are not just practical alternatives but also carry symbolic meaning, blending ecological function with cultural expression. Burial garments made from these materials can help nourish the soil, support biodiversity, and allow natural decomposition, transforming deathcare from an industrial, polluting system into one centered on renewal. This project draws together environmental science, biomaterials research, design, and cultural anthropology to explore how burial can be reimagined as a practice that sustains both ecosystems and human meaning, infused with aesthetic and artistic resonance.
Natural Processes and Modern Disruptions
Death is not just a biological process, it is an ecological event. Humans are made from organic matter that comes from nature, and will eventually return to nature. That is, our bodies continue to engage with our environment even after they are not alive. When bodies are buried in the earth “naturally,” (without any additional chemicals, materials, or coverings), they can help nourish ecosystems by providing nutrients to the soil. However, modern conventional burial practices that involve cremation, embalming fluids, and sealed caskets, prevent natural decay and pollute the environment. Through comparing what happens to the body in natural decomposition to modern conventional burial practices like those listed above, it becomes clear that while natural burials support ecological health, industrialized burial methods actively harm the environment, and hinder humans’ opportunity to join the symbiotic relationship between life and death in the larger, interconnected natural world.
When bodies are left to decompose in the earth, they can provide valuable nutrients to the soil. In a 2023 study led by Lois S.Taylor, researchers investigated how the body causes nourishing elements to enter the soil in three ways: directly from the body, through chemical reaction between the body and soil, and through chemical reactions within soils caused by previous acidity changes due to the decomposing body. They found that key nutrients such as sodium, potassium, phosphorus, and sulfur are released directly from cadavers, immediately enriching the soil. Other elements such as calcium, magnesium, and manganese become available as decomposition shifts soil chemistry. As acidic conditions dissolve minerals in the soil, trace amounts of iron, copper, and zinc are released later in the process. Together, these nutrient releases create “hotspots” for nutrient cycling and microbial activity. Thus, when bodies are left to decay in their bare state, they join nature’s symbiotic relationship between decay and renewal, fueling new life in the soil.
Alternatively, modern burial practices bring in new substances and materials that harm the environment: particularly cremation, embalming, and treated caskets. Cremation became a common option and gained popularity in the late 1900s as more crematories were established, and society began to favor the idea of cleanliness and decontamination associated with the practice. Between 1975 and 1999 the number of crematories in the United States grew from 425 to 1,468, despite cremation putting out toxic emissions into the environment including volatile organic compounds, heavy metals, particulate matter, and other toxic chemicals.
Embalming became common practice during the civil war in order to keep soldiers' bodies preserved until they could be buried away from the frontlines and closer to home. While originally used for soldiers, embalming quickly latched on as a routine American practice in order to preserve the physical appearance of the deceased, even though formaldehyde, the main embalming agent, contaminates groundwater, which can compromise the safety of drinking water and other resources.
The process of embalming introduces many harmful chemicals into the environment. It is estimated that to embalm a medium-sized adult, approximately 13 litres of embalming fluids are needed. These embalming fluids consist largely of formaldehyde, triclosan, and phenol; a highly toxic human carcinogen, an agent that promotes antimicrobial resistance (potentially spreading pathogenic bacteria), and a chemical compound that kills organisms and pollutes environments. Though these fluids are put into a human within a casket to preserve their form once buried, they eventually leak out. These poisonous compounds have been detected in cemeteries in their soils, underground water supplies, and surfaces all around the world. As they accumulate, they both contaminate ecosystems and hinder natural decomposition that allows an environment to flourish. In this way, the process of embalming inhibits the body’s potential to return to the earth as a source of nutrients and instead turns it into a toxin, severing the symbiotic relationship between death and regeneration between body and ground.
Finally, caskets treated with chemicals and metals (another common modern burial solution) can cause pollution and have negative effects on soil health in cemeteries as well. Ornamental coffins, particularly those made with painted metals, gasketed steel, and treated wood, have been found to leach elements such as mercury, lead, cadmium, and zinc into the surrounding soil. Taken together, practices such as embalming, cremation, and chemically treated caskets reveal how the modern funeral industry interrupts natural decomposition and contributes toxins to ecosystems. Where our own deaths could be fueling new life, instead we choose systems to deal with the dead that further harm life by disrupting and polluting surrounding ecology.
Cultural Traditions and Emerging Alternatives
Though these familiar burial practices are harmful to the environment, there are many examples throughout history and across different cultures of how burials can be approached in a way that allows for natural decomposition, helping the material body return to the ground while still honoring the life of the deceased through tradition. By looking at diverse global and historical traditions that honor natural decomposition in burial, we can see how humans have favored environmentally friendly modes of dealing with the deceased, demonstrating how this alignment of values with connectedness to the earth and burial practice has existed for centuries. At the same time, the rise of the green burial movement in more recent years shows how modern day society is forging new traditions to align these values with other modern cultural priorities. Considering both historical traditions and contemporary alternatives highlights how burial practices are not fixed, but are continually shaped by cultural values and ecological awareness, underscoring the potential to reimagine death in ways that center harmony between humanity and the natural world.
Many cultures and religions have been practicing environmentally friendly burials for centuries. For example traditional Jewish burials are inherently natural, as Jewish law prohibits the use of any embalming or additives to the body beyond a simple biodegradable shroud, and potentially a wooden casket. As stated in Jewish law, “For dust you are and to dust you shall return,” emphasizing the belief that the body should naturally decompose and rejoin the earth. Similarly, Islamic burials also prohibit embalming and cremation, requiring instead that the body be washed, wrapped in a simple biodegradable shroud, and placed directly in the ground as soon after death as possible. Other cultures engage the natural world through customs other than burial. In certain regions of Tibet, bodies are left in elevated places for vultures to eat the body, as a gesture to give back to the natural world. Water burials have also been practiced across cultures, whether placing bodies in canoes in the Pacific Islands, laying them on reefs to be eaten by sharks in the Solomon Islands, or throwing remains into rivers in India. These practices illustrate a shared human understanding that death can fuel the living world if burial is approached with this intent. Far from being a modern invention, cultures across time have embraced this approach, showing that burial traditions have long reflected values of ecological reciprocity. The recent rise of the green burial movement continues this lineage, adapting what may feel like “older” ways of thinking about death and burial to fit contemporary environmental concerns, and cultural priorities.
The green burial movement has emerged primarily out of the United States over the past three decades as a response to the environmental and cultural costs of conventional burial methods. Unlike cremation, embalming and traditional caskets, which release toxins into the environment, green burials don’t just prioritize minimal interference with natural systems, but contribute to nourishing decomposition for the soil to increase the health of the local ecosystem. The Green Burial Council (GBC) was founded in 2005 by Joe Sehee to establish verifiable standards for green burial enterprises, and to ensure that consumers had access to trustworthy and transparent sources about this approach. The GBC develops and maintains certification standards for cemeteries, funeral homes, and burial product providers. Cemeteries can be deemed as hybrid (sections for certified green burials and sections for conventional burials), natural (entire cemeteries certified as being green burials), or conservation (burial grounds managed in partnership with land trusts to manage and protect and preserve the habitat).
In order to fit the criteria of a green burial cemetery, the cemetery must fit the following criteria and characteristics: “Caring for the dead with minimal environmental impact that aids in the conservation of natural resources[;]Reduction of carbon emissions; Protection of worker health[;] Restoration and/or preservation of habitat[;] Foregoes toxic embalming[;] Does away with vaults[;] Chooses biodegradable containers, caskets, shrouds, and urns[;] Discontinues herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers[;] Encourages sustainable management practices[;] May use GPS units or non-native stone markers to mark grave sites[;] May support land conservation efforts.” The GBC provides the framework in the U.S. for widescale adoption of green burials, through setting the standards, creating accountability, and translating the ecological and cultural value of this approach to those considering different burial options.
Even with its clear ecological and cultural benefits, the green burial movement still faces obstacles to becoming mainstream. As noted in Elena Slominski’s 2023 paper, Life of the death system: shifting regimes, evolving practices, and the rise of eco-funerals, eco-funerals (green burials) have developed in response to the ecological harms of standard burial methods, yet their growth has been since "'Many funeral directors and other industry professionals have thus stubbornly resisted changes in funeral practices, seeing eco-funerals as a “threat to [their]industry.” As of November 2024, there were an estimated 470 green burial cemeteries across the United States and Canada, as certified by the GBC. Additionally, a range of surveys have shown that between 60 and 90% of Americans have reported interest in green burials. Given that there are between approximately 144,000 and 155,000 cemeteries in the U.S. alone, this discrepancy between to access to green burial cemeteries and what’s currently available, as well as the conflict between growing interest in the general public and resistance from the funeral industry, it is clear that more expansion, awareness, and infrastructure is needed in the green funeral industry for green burial to meet its potential as a widespread, sustainable alternative.
Approaching innovation in green burial requires not just ecological standards as put forward by the GBC and further infrastructure, but also a deeper cultural shift in how death is conceptualized in the U.S. Thanatologists such as Herman Feifel and Elizabeth Kübler-Ross were pivotal in reshaping this conversation by framing death as an integral part of life that should be discussed and not hidden, or sanitized, through their work back in the mid-late 1900s, specifically Feifel’s 1959 The Meaning of Death, and Kübler-Ross’s 1969 On Death and Dying (amongst others). In order to apply this framework to the current context of today’s funeral industry, new burial practices that align with pressing ecological needs, as well as what is culturally important in funeral practices today, are needed.
Design Experiments in Green Burial
In recent years, a range of creative, new green burial solutions have become available in the U.S. and abroad. Examples include coffins that are grown from fungi, burial shrouds that nourish the soil, and burial pods that transform the body into a tree -- showing how centering living materials, designing for ecological benefit, and symbolism between body and earth can reposition death as a process of regeneration and connectedness. Leading with the slogans “Here to enrich nature,” and “Shouldn’t your last act be your greatest?” Bob and Lanette Hendrikx have been developing Loop Biotech since 2020. Loop Biotech provides a range of coffins, urns, and memorials grown from mycelium combined with upcycled hemp fiber. Their products fully decompose in weeks, turning the body into nutrients for the soil. This take on burial reflects a cultural shift away from permanence and preservation of the body, and frames death as an ecological contribution, with the beauty of the burial being in the ephemerality of the product.
Another example is Matthew Kochmann’s company Transcend, which promotes “tree burials” as a scalable alternative to cemeteries. Families can choose from different species of trees, under which their loved one is buried to help supply the tree with nutrients. The trees are marked by GPS coordinates and simple plaques. In this approach, the family has something alive (the tree) to feel connected to afterwards, that continues to grow as time passes. In caring for that tree and landscape, families may inherit a sense of responsibility for the environment on a highly emotional level, since their loved one is now a part of it.
Using trees as a point of connection between body and earth in a similar manner, Italian designers Anna Citelli and Raoul Bretzel created Capsula Mundi, a biodegradable burial pod shaped like a seed. Bodies or ashes are placed inside and buried, and a tree is planted above. As the capsule breaks down, it nourishes the soil and tree. This symbolic merging of human death with the lifecycle of a tree similarly creates a sense of connection and responsibility with the environment like Transcend.
Finally, a particularly emotional solution is Jae Rhim Lee’s Mushroom Death Suit. Presented in her 2011 Ted Talk, Rhim Lee introduced a tailored bodysuit lined with mushroom spores that is designed to break down the body after burial, and help cleanse toxins in human tissue. Though the suit is not commercially available, the idea of using a garment to help decompose the body is especially powerful because it treats clothing as both a way to honor the individual identity of the deceased, while acknowledging the organic materiality of the corpse. By turning the final act of wearing the garment into a collaboration with the natural world, the suit reframes death as an intimate and embodied gesture of human identity merging with the collective identity of the natural world.
These projects illustrate how design and biomaterials can radically reimagine burial as a practice of regeneration. Each solution reframes death as an ecological act and cultural gesture of connection. These examples are a small subset of the multitude of ways that designers, artists, and innovators are experimenting with new, culturally resonant approaches to green burial around the world.
This body of work creates a powerful foundation for envisioning new approaches, and it is in dialogue with these projects that I pursue my own solution -- a custom, beautiful biomaterial tailored suit that helps the body decompose, allowing the individual to join the natural world clothed in a personalized piece of art.
