In a groundbreaking move that's equal parts eco-friendly and fungus-forward, a woman in her 70s named Carolyn has become the first Australian to be buried in a coffin made from mushrooms. The funeral took place on Friday at Springwood Cemetery in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, where friends and family gathered to lay her to rest in a casket grown from mycelium - the root network of fungi - and hemp fibres.

The coffin, crafted by Dutch firm Loop Biotech, is grown in a climate-controlled room over the course of a week. Once buried, it takes about 45 days to become one with the soil - a process akin to composting. This is a stark contrast to traditional wooden caskets, which can take up to 50 years to break down. Because who needs to wait half a century to become dirt when you can do it in a month and a half?

Carolyn's husband, David, said the choice aligned with her values of giving back. "She was always there to help others. It feels very true to who she was that even after her death, she can still do something for others while giving something back to nature," he said. Because apparently, being a decent human being wasn't enough - she had to go and be a decent corpse too.

Loop Biotech's founder, Bob Hendrikx, noted that while Carolyn is the first in Australia, thousands of others have been buried in similar coffins across Europe and the US. "Five years ago when I started, there was lots of interest from Australia," he said. "It was a little bit harder to ship overseas [at the time]." Because nothing says 'sorry, you can't decompose in style' like international shipping logistics.

Hendrikx hopes the coffins, which weigh about 30kg each, could improve the sustainability of the Australian funeral sector by shortening the decomposition process. "It's about giving back to nature: we have the mushroom, which is grown and dissolves into nature, but the actual benefit is that ... it's enriching the soil," he explained. "If a kangaroo dies in the forest, it's just going to be part of the cycle of life." And now, so can you - if you're willing to shell out for a fancy mushroom suit.

Dr Hannah Gould, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Melbourne, suggests that people are increasingly drawn to eco-friendly farewells. "As people perhaps become less religious, other kinds of values or community groupings become more important, and one of those that we've seen is eco-death," she said. "This idea that perhaps that you don't go up to heaven after you die, you return to the earth, has been an increasingly popular narrative around death and dying."

Given that about 70% of Australians choose cremation, which emits an estimated 125kg of carbon dioxide per typical funeral, the appeal of greener alternatives is clear. Options like alkaline hydrolysis (a water-based alternative to fire), natural burials without embalming, and even shallow burials are gaining traction. A cardboard coffin with rope handles, for instance, emits less than 10kg of CO2 equivalent, according to PlanetMark analysis.

Gould also notes that as Australians live longer and more die from prolonged illnesses, people are spending more time contemplating their departure. "They've maybe seen or organised a funeral for their parents and it hasn't gone so well," she said. "And they're now deciding that they want to do things differently. So we're seeing a huge rise in funeral planning." Because nothing says 'I learned from my parents' mistakes' like pre-planning your own decomposition strategy.