It's no secret that we like talking about cardboard boxes. From fully customizable cardboard boxes that can be formed into just about any shape, to others that could revolutionize the pizza box, there's clearly tons of room for growth and sustainable improvements to cardboard boxes. But the new Life Box design from Paul Stamets does something no other cardboard box does, it sprouts.

According to its creators, Stamets' Life Box and Tree Life Box "builds upon the synergy of fungi and plants by infusing spores and seeds together inside of packaging materials that can be planted."

Planted Planet Productions, distributors of the Life Box suite of products say it could be ideally suited for DVD/CD mailers, pizza boxes, shoe boxes or even sleeves for hot beverage cups. They even suggest that some day the Tree Life Box could some day qualify for up to one ton of carbon credits, but I think they have some serious product testing and independent verification before that happens.

Reprinted with permission from Earth & Industry