Ecopod
Hazel Selina started the Ecopod project 15 years ago after discovering how toxic the funeral industry is.
Around 800,000 traditional coffins are burnt or buried each year: 89% are made from laminated chipboard containing dangerous pollutants, the other 11% from solid wood.
She wanted to introduce an alternative to the traditional coffin that was innovative in design, beautiful, colourful and ethical, using recycled materials – and not harm the earth in any way.
Hazel says: “The biggest challenge was – and still is – to encourage undertakers to offer the Ecopod instead of chipboard coffins which they can buy cheaply and sell very expensively. However, a new breed of ‘green’ undertakers is emerging, who are particularly interested in using green burial sites and selling green funeral products.”
The Ecopod business has developed from making one or two a week, to opening up a workshop locally and employing two workers.
The process is a handmade one, mixing recycled newspaper pulp with a mineral hardener in a huge pre-war dough mixer and pressing this mixture into moulds.
The company also manufactures ‘Acorn’ urns for ashes, also made from paper pulp, as an alternative to the non-biodegradable plastic urn.
All glues and paints used in the production of Ecopods and Acorn Urns come from ethical companies and Ecopod has passed all regulatory tests for safety and cremation emissions.
Ecopod is currently negotiating with a factory to take up production in order to enable the company to bring prices down to a more financially competitive level, but they will still operate a finishing workshop in Brighton, where Ecopods are finished with handmade paper with silk screened designs.
Hazel says: “I feel very hopeful that the face of funerals will quietly change over the next few years as more and more people are becoming conscious of the need to protect the planet.”
