New Era for Green Burials? Mycelium Caskets Make US Debut in Maine Funeral

Mark C Ancker was laid to rest in a casket made from mushroom mycelium, a first for North America. It signals the growing popularity of green burials in the US.

In rural Maine, artist Marsya Ancker buried her father Mark on a quiet hillside, in the midst of nature. But it wasn’t just the tall trees that were green – it was the entire funeral.

Ancker chose to lay her father to rest in a planet-friendly casket made from mycelium, the root-like structure of filamentous fungi. Called the Living Cocoon, it was created by Dutch startup Loop Biotech.

“My father always told me that he wanted to be buried in the woods on the property that he loved so much,” said Ancker. “I knew the Living Cocoon mushroom casket was the perfect tool to help us co-create a garden with his favourite perennial plants.”

Mark’s funeral marked Loop’s debut in North America and comes amid growing interest in green burials in the region.

Why Loop Biotech is using mycelium for its caskets

Loop initially made headlines in 2020, when a funeral in the Netherlands became the first to use its mushroom mycelium casket. Since then, it has facilitated over 2,500 burials across Europe.

The casket is made from local mushroom species and upcycled hemp fibres at its facility in Delft, and is lined with a soft bed and pillow of moss on the inside. The moss can be replaced with either Dutch wool, Mediterranean hemp, or soft bio-cotton.

It is grown in just seven days, and is absorbed back into the soil after just 45 days. This actively contributes to the decomposition of the body within two to three years, as opposed to the decade or more it can take to biodegrade in traditional caskets (which contain wood and metals).

Mycelium feeds and enriches the soil and increases its biodiversity. It turns the bodies into nutrients that help grow plants, closing the loop with the Earth and leaving a positive footprint.

“Funerals can be more than endings – they can be beginnings,” said Loop co-founder Bob Hendrikx. “We created the Loop Living Cocoon to offer a way for humans to enrich nature after death. It’s about leaving the world better than we found it.”

Green burials on the rise

Funerals aren’t traditionally eco-friendly. A typical crematorium releases between 160-190 kgs of carbon into the atmosphere for each cremation it carries out. Conventional burials, meanwhile, use around 4.3 million gallons of embalming fluid, 20 million board feet of hardwood, and 1.6 million tons of reinforced concrete every year in the US, according to the Green Burial Council.

The non-profit organisation has been around for two decades, and has recorded over 400 green cemeteries in North America and certified more than 250 green providers. It comes amid a rise in green funerals, with the number of Americans interested in green funerals increasing from 56% in 2021 to 68% in 2024, a report by the National Funeral Directors Association found.

“This reflects a powerful shift toward environmentally conscious end-of-life choices,” said Emily Miller, board member and treasurer of the Green Burial Council. “As awareness of the environmental impact of conventional burials and cremations grows, so does the demand for meaningful, sustainable alternatives.”

Apart from the casket, Loop offers a funeral carrier called EarthLoop, and an urn called EarthRise, both also made from mycelium.

Ancker hopes that her family’s decision to use the compostable casket would inspire others to consider green burials, too. “The Loop Living Cocoon makes it easy to create a beautiful place of remembrance,” she said. “One that will bring joy and contemplation for generations to come.”

Other companies greenifying funerals include Recompose, which offers a full-service human-composting funeral home to convert bodies into soil, and Passages International, which provides biodegradable urns, scattering tubes and other products.