Two Italian designers, Anna Citelli and Raoul Bretzel, have put forth a green alternative to cemeteries, funerals and burials – even cremation. The Capsula Mundi concept uses an egg-shaped burial pod of biodegradable starch plastic as the coffin where the body is placed in a fetal position. Buried under the ground as a seed, a tree begins to grow over the top of the pod that uses the nutrients from the decomposing body as fertilizer for its growth.

Still at the design stage, there are still a few hitches being worked out, including regulations concerning burials. Citelli and Bretzel, however, envision forests full of trees as living memorials to the deceased.