FRANKLIN COUNTY, Pa. — For more than a year, Max Justice has been on a mission to bury the way we’re buried.
Deciding to abandon metal caskets, he feels the funeral industry has mush-room to grow, literally.
"We’re taking those natural resources out of the ground to put a dead body into it and back in the ground. It absolutely doesn’t make any sense," said Max Justice, CEO of Setas Eternal Living.
His company is now the first in the nation to sell biodegradable coffins made from fungi.
It starts with a mushroom called mycelium growing in a bag of hemp.
It’s moved to a mold and formed in the shape of a coffin as it continues to grow and solidify over a few days. The coffins are moved to a chamber with purified air and then to an oven.
They cook for 20 hours at 155 degrees and become petrified.
Setas finishes one human coffin and two pet coffins per week.
Justice said embalming isn’t necessary.
"The water within the individual will help to bring that mycelium back to life which will in turn biodegrade the body in under three years," Justice said.
The coffins are grown to be big enough to fit a person about six feet tall, but in the future, they’ll be grown for any size and at a price that will make you sit up straight.
"Right now, our coffins are $2,495," he said. "Getting a coffin at a funeral home, those can easily start around $5,000 and quickly go to $20,000."
Justice said he’s seen proof the caskets work.
"A year ago, unfortunately, one of my chickens passed away so we buried one of my chickens in our small coffins," Justice said. "After a year of being interred in the ground, we exhumed the chicken and all we found were two thigh bones and a couple of vertebrae."
As for where they can be buried, Justice said every cemetery is self-governing and has different casket requirements.
He’s already working with funeral homes and planning to ramp up production as his business keeps growing.