Biodegradable Urns

Click here for many choices of Biodegradable Urns

Perfect For Nature Lovers

Biodegradable urns have become increasingly popular in recent years as environmental concerns have become a factor in the memorial industry. Biodegradable urns are made of material that degrades easily in a relatively short period of time – compared to the thousands of years that many traditional urns, made of metal or some other hearty material, are designed to last. Biodegradable urns are most commonly used when ashes are to be buried at sea. Biodegradable urns are typically displayed briefly during a ceremony at sea and then placed into a body of water. Biodegradable urns will then drop peacefully to the ocean flow where they will settle for a time and then degrade, leaving the ashes to mix eternally – and beautifully – with the elements.

Biodegradable urns are usually made of a thin wood-based material such as heavy paper. The biodegradable urns are always designed to float for up to 15 minutes before gracefully beginning their final descent. Such designs help biodegradable urns assure a touching, perhaps emotional-filled, ceremony at sea. Within two days, biodegradable urns are usually completely degraded, and the ashes then scatter themselves across the sea floor, moving with the water.

It's important to note that, while biodegradable urns are commonly buried at sea, their environmentally friendly qualities also make them appropriate for burial on land. Whatever their ultimate destination, biodegradable urns are particularly appropriate for memorializing a loved-one because they have many unique, personal qualities. Biodegradable urns come in a variety of shapes and styles. One of the most common styles of biodegradable urns is a seashell shaped urn that can be painted any number of colors to fit the personality of the person being memorialized.  Biodegradable urns are also commonly found in a vase shape, like that of a traditional urn. With this shape, biodegradable urns allow families to participate in the centuries of traditions that urns have inspired. The traditional urn's shape, for example, has brought forth a number of great literary works, including John Keats's "Ode to a Grecian Urn," which classically relates the unique décor of almost every funeral urn ever made to mankind's eternal struggles with mortality. (That poem, by the way, is said to not be about one particular urn, so it could very well apply to a biodegradable urn as to any other style of urn, even though biodegradable urns were not popularized until well after Keats' death.)

Whatever the shape, biodegradable urns are all manufactured with the greatest of care. Though biodegradable urns have only come in common use in the Western world in the last few decades, craftsmen across the world have been making them – for other cultures -- for centuries, using only the most environmentally friendly methods. In many cases, for example, biodegradable urns are made using wood that is only chipped from a tree while the tree is still rooted in the ground. Biodegradable urns, therefore, often do not even result in the death of a tree.

Biodegradable urns are quickly becoming a popular choice for people whose want the beauty and dignity of a burial ceremony but whose loved-ones are concerned about the traditional urns' affect on Earth's environment.