A Sydney woman becomes first in Australia to be buried in a mushroom-grown coffin

A Sydney woman has become the first person in Australia to be buried in a coffin grown from mushrooms, in a funeral that organisers say reflects a wider shift towards environmentally friendly ways of being laid to rest.

Carolyn, a woman in her 70s whose surname has been withheld at her family’s request, received a funeral service in Faulconbridge on Friday before being buried at Springwood Cemetery in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales.

The coffin was developed by the Dutch company called Loop Biotech, and is grown from mycelium, the root-like network of a mushroom colony, mixed with hemp fibres taken from agricultural waste. The material is packed around a mould in a climate-controlled room and takes about a week to grow into the shape of a coffin. Once buried, it takes roughly 45 days to be absorbed into the soil, compared with up to 50 years for a traditional wooden casket.

"It feels very true to who she was that even after her death, she can still do something for others while giving something back to nature," said Carolyn's husband, Donald.

Bob Hendrikx, the 32-year-old founder and chief executive of Loop Biotech, said the coffin was designed to biodegrade fully and enrich the soil rather than pollute it.

"We are trying to create a cocoon that's actually biodegradable," he told the Sydney Morning Herald. "In ideal conditions, in 45 days it will be one with the soil, and instead of polluting the earth, it is enriching the soil."

He said he began developing the idea as a university project at Delft University of Technology five years ago, and had fielded interest from Australian customers from the outset, though it took time to navigate the country's strict biosecurity rules before a distributor could be signed.

Asha Dooley, managing director of Grace Funerals and national president of Funerals Australia, directed Carolyn's funeral. She said client families had grown far more interested in environmental sustainability over her 15 years in the industry, particularly in the past four or five years.

"Five years ago, very few families were asking these questions," she told 1News. "Today we're regularly speaking with people who want a farewell that reflects how someone lived their life.

"We believe this is the beginning of an important shift in the Australian funeral profession."

Carolyn's long-time friend Christine said it had felt "almost whimsical" seeing her resting on a bed of moss at the service. "It felt like she was already becoming part of the earth," she told the outlet.

Dr Hannah Gould, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Melbourne, said interest in eco-friendly funerals was growing as fewer Australians identified with organised religion.

"As people perhaps become less religious, other kinds of values or community groupings become more important, and one of those that we've seen is eco-death," she told the Guardian. "This idea that perhaps you don't go up to heaven after you die, you return to the earth, has been an increasingly popular narrative around death and dying."

About 200,000 funerals take place in Australia each year, and cremations outnumber burials by roughly seven to three, largely because burial land is costly in cities such as Sydney and Melbourne. A typical cremation is estimated to produce more than 100kg of carbon dioxide, though sources differ on the precise figure.

Other emerging alternatives include alkaline hydrolysis, a cremation-like process that uses water instead of fire, and human composting, in which remains are broken down with organic material such as wood chips and straw over several weeks.

The independent Sydney MP Alex Greenwich introduced a bill in June that would legalise human composting in New South Wales, which would make it the first Australian state to permit the method.