Bios Urn: the startup that lets you grow a tree from human ashes.

[Cattledog]

Jay Junker’s father has blossomed into a beautiful oak tree on the side of a mountain in Vermont. As oak trees go, this one is still in its infancy. But Junker has a vision of spending more time with it – and his father – as it grows. He says: “In a few years, I’ll be able to hang my hammock out there and just swing in the breeze with my dad by my side and watching over me.”

Junker buried his father in a Bios Urn, a biodegradable urn designed to grow trees from ashes. Since 2012, brothers Roger and Gerard Moliné have sold 100,000 Bios Urns to people looking to turn the ashes of loved ones or pets into trees all over the world from their head office in Barcelona, Spain.

The urn arrives in the post as a cardboard tube made of two separate cones, one for holding ashes and another containing a soil mix and the seed of choice, whether that is a maple, oak, pine or any other tree or bush. The buyer then decants the ashes into the bottom cone and buries the two parts together. That’s easy for people like Junker, who has 200 acres of family-owned land in Vermont. He dreams of one day planting all his family and pets in the same field so he can always spend time with them.

Entire article at:

http://www.independent.co.uk/Business/indyventure/startup-biodegradable-urn-grow-tree-human-remains-business-a7852446.html