This Urn Turns Your Loved One's Ashes Into A Potted Tree After they Die

Your loved ones can nurture your ashes and create new life—and they don't even need a backyard.

Instead of visiting your dearly departed grandmother in a cemetery, now it's possible to watch her ashes turn into a tree on your balcony.

The Bios Urn, made from coconut shells, compacted peat, and cellulose, holds a person's ashes along with a seed for a tree. As the urn decomposes, the tree roots take up the ashes and break through the small pod. Though the urn can be planted in the ground, the designers realized that city-dwellers not have access to land—and might want to keep a family member closer.

"Everyone has mentioned that they want to be a tree after they die," Moliné says. "But since we’ve launched Bios Incube, we’ve seen that people are also excited for the fact that you can experience the growth of the tree that comes from your loved one's remains. I think this is really interesting because if we are able to turn the process of death—which is always related with grief and desolation—to an educative and emotionally appealing moment of life itself, we will have achieved a lot."