New form of seed-sprouting packaging will connect people back to nature and involve them in a planet-wide reforestation effort

Paul Stamets, the mushroom expert and Bioneer, has re-invented the cardboard box to help customers, and the companies who deliver to them, become part of a collective DIY movement to re-green the planet.
When everyday items, such as DVDs, pizzas and shoes, arrive in the Life Box, there appears to be nothing unusual about the cardboard exterior. However, housed inside the corrugations are hundreds of tree seeds. People simply tear the box up, plant it, add water, sit back and watch the seedlings grow.

Each seed is dusted with fungal spores that germinate and work their way into the soil through a network of cells called Mycelium (see article on Paul Stamets). These protect the cardboard seed nursery by providing nutrients and water. They also keep the young, growing trees safe from disease, famine and drought in a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship. “It’s a shovel-ready solution to climate change,” Paul says. “It empowers individuals to off-set climate change by planting trees that are literally at their finger tips.”

He explains the maths: “Even if Life Box only had a 1–2% share of the cardboard box market in the United States, that would be enough cardboard to cover up to 25,000 acres. Of the hundreds of seeds in each box, if only one tree survives for 30 years, about a tonne of carbon is sequestered. The potential for tree coverage could reach 25 million acres a week. No matter how you do the calculations, the implications are massively positive.”

Paul believes the Life Box is both a form of social and ecological currency. “All the space you need for the first two years is that of two laptops,” he explains. “After the baby trees emerge, you need to plant them. Then, you have two years to talk to family and friends about where some suitable land is, if you dont have any of your own.”

Once the saplings are in the ground, growers can visit the Life Box website to enter their GPS co-ordinates. As satellite imaging improves over time, current and future generations will be able to see the trees flourish and keep a track on their carbon credits.

“No matter what causes climate change, no one can object to planting trees,” he continues, “but for this to work, we need companies providing consumer goods to join in the effort and get Life Box into the hands of people as soon as possible.”

Each box contains birches, hemlocks, alders, pines, cedars, Douglas firs and others, approved by the departments of agriculture for the US and Canada. But the company, which is still in its early days of development, is currently working on a species-mix appropriate for Britain and Europe. The idea could also extend into a suite of products, carrying seeds of vegetables or native grasses, and there are plans to customise some of the blends according to post code destinations.

Contact: Planted Planet Productions LLC
with Life Box Company LLC,
PO Box 11507, Olympia,
Washington 98508, USA
Telephone: +1 (360) 285 3220
Website: www​.lifeboxcompany​.com

Photo: copyright Paul Stamets