You (or your dog) could become a tree

Greener burial options are sprouting up. In earlier posts, I’ve shared information about composting human remains. But the process leaves the family with a cubic yard of soil, way too much for an urn or plastic-lined box. The New York start up, Transcend, wants to turn your body into a tree.

Customers choose a tree species suitable for their preferred burial site, on land owned by the company. When the client dies, their body is prepared in biodegradable flax linen and buried surrounded by a mixture of wood chips, local soil and fungi to facilitate composting. Planted over the body is a two-to-four-year-old tree, capable of absorbing the rich…