Banana art in the news:
MONTROSE, Colo.—Casket makers catering to natural burials have offered biodegradable coffins made of such materials as recycled newspapers or cardboard. Montrose-based Ecoffins USA 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.
Ecoffins USA is the sister company of The SAWD Partnership, which has helped fuel the “green” funeral movement in the United Kingdom.
In natural burials, bodies aren’t embalmed and eventually decompose into the earth.
acilius
believer1
lefalcon
losthunderlads
vthunderlad
Panther Red 
cymast
/ July 6, 2009The wide-spread custom of embalming and sealing a dead bodies in non-biodegradable containers is mind-bogglingly wasteful, not to mention quite morbid!
Horray for Ecoffins!
acilius
/ July 6, 2009Hooray indeed! Of all the books I was assigned to read in high school, the one I think of most often is Jessica Mitford’s The American Way of Death. An old book even then, but never more timely.
cymast
/ July 6, 2009Wow, it actually is “hooray.” It looks weird to me.
Anyway, this reminds me of a conversation I had with my MIL. She was describing a TV show she watched about how many times Lincoln’s dead body was buried, unearthed, moved, and reburied- a dozen times . . all for a dead, embalmed body. People kept trying to steal it. UGH!
acilius
/ July 6, 2009Yes, that’s bizarre.
believer1
/ July 7, 2009One of the reasons why I want to be creamated is because I don’twant to be buried in such a way that my body cannot return to the earth.
so I say HOORAY too.
That is the most beautiful casket I have ever seen.
acilius
/ July 8, 2009Yes, it is very lovely.