In this publication we want to address a topic of great importance, misleading products, products developed only with the economic benefits in mind, without taking into account customer satisfaction.
In the funeral sector this is specially serious, since at the moment of so much fragility as that of mourning for a loved one, it is joined by the frustration generated by the product that was supposed to mitigate the pain or at least accompany it during that hard process.
Therefore, leaving personal interests aside, we consider it a social duty to denounce such products, for ethical issues and out of respect for people, both the deceased and people in the process of mourning.
All this arises after studying certain biodegradable urns that claim to become a tree after life, or return you to nature. However, they are products that do not seem to take into account the real needs of the seed and future plant, or technical aspects. So, at an unacceptably high percentage, the seed will not germinate, and if it does, the plant will encounter conditions that will prevent it from prospering.
Logically, it would not be responsible to affirm such a thing without compelling reasons, so that we will unravel the proven facts, and we will indicate the conceptual failures of said products, since their scientific-technical development process seems insufficient. Let’s see it:
To begin with, these ballot boxes claim to give you the freedom to select the seed you want. However, since the urn does not develop with a specific species in mind, it is impossible for the product to be optimal for your plant. It must be taken into account that, depending on its evolution over millions of years, each plant species is adapted for conditions and has very specific needs. A non-specific ballot box will not meet these needs.
On the other hand, the non-inclusion of seed is a very risky measure, since the germination percentages of seeds are enormously variable, and as a general rule, very far from 100% success. There are countless species whose seeds have a very low success rate, or directly zero without previous pretreatment.
Even from species with high percentages, you will need seeds of perfect quality, which is difficult to recognize prior to their planting, since we usually do not know the handling given by the distributor, nor the time they have been stored.
In addition, that it is only a seed, it is an additional risk. As a sample, in our Sempervivens urn, our seeds have an individual laboratory-tested percentage of 97.8% of germination, and yet we consider it risky to use only one, so that in each vessel we use three seeds, so statistically we have more than 99.9% chance that at least one seed germinates. That will never happen with a single seed, of a species not tested in the biodegradable urn.
These urns also do not include any type of care guide for the plant (since they do not know which plant the client will choose), nor advice to ensure germination. Once the urn is sold, the company does not participate in the process, and they do not guide the client in any way. It can be argued that care tips can always be found on the internet, but the information may be inaccurate, or at least, not completely applicable to the peculiar conditions of an urn, with quite a few differences to a common pot.
And as for the design, mention that these urns also do not take into account the internal conditions that occur in them. This results in urns without a drainage system that prevents the accumulation of liquids inside, which will undoubtedly generate unhealthy conditions for the plant, allowing the proliferation of fungi that make the plant sick.
However, the biggest problem we have detected is conceptual, that of the position of the ashes in the urn. Contextualizing, it is scientifically proven that funeral ash is, at first, an aggressive material that damages the roots of plants. This is because of its high pH and salinity.
- In the other urns, the ashes are immediately under the sowing point of the seed, so that the plant will be affected by adverse conditions in the moments immediately after its germination (if not before), when its roots begin to grow and deepen. It goes without saying that a plant of days of life is very vulnerable and fragile, and that therefore, under those negative conditions that plant will die irretrievably.
- On the other hand, in our development, we have taken this phenomenon into account at all times, and we have made an interior design that the distance and relative position of plant and ashes is such that it allows the roots to approach the ashes at the right time, once the ashes have begun their process of degradation and release of nutrients, by the passage of time and by the effect of the irrigation products that we include with our vessels.
So we ask you not to resort to these deceptive ballot boxes, or at least inform yourself in detail about what you are buying.
Because, unlike with our vessel, in these products, once the ashes are introduced and the planting and watering is done, the ashes of your loved one will be irretrievable, whether a plant germinates in your urn, or if it does not.