Hasta La Ideas

Seed-infused cardboard ups the sustainability of shipping

Fungi expert Paul Stamets’ Life Box infuses cardboard with seeds for a plantable shipping container. Simply tear up the box, bury it in the ground and water the area to get various forms of vegetation to sprout. Made from recycled paper and printed with soy-based inks, the box contains about 100 tree seeds that have mycorrhizal fungal spores. Trees and fungi live in a symbiotic relation, and as the trees begin to grow, the fungi can help nurture and protect the tree against drought and famine.

If one tree out of the hundreds of seeds grows for 30 years, it will offset approximately one ton of carbon. Highlighted on Good, contributor Andrew Price says of the boxes that start at $33 for a set of 10, “If you run a company that could use these instead of normal cardboard, I will happily trade a public endorsement of your product in the Good blog for a pledge to switch to these things.”