What if the box you sent in the mail was more amazing than whatever present you put inside? The Life Box is a new type of cardboard box that's filled with hundreds of tree seeds that you can easily grow. It's the brainchild of mushroom expert Paul Stamets, one of the most inspiring speakers at the recent Sustainable Brands conference.

The seeds are interlaced with beneficial fungi to help them grow better. When you receive a Life Box in the mail, you can tear off the cardboard and soak it to start the seedlings on their way; you'll have baby trees ready to plant in a couple of years. The tree species were carefully selected to be native all across the U.S. and Canada, and include birches, alders, pines, hemlocks, and cedars. The company also worked to get all the necessary permits to ship seeds across state lines. The Life Box is manufactured in the U.S. using recycled cardboard and soy-based inks.

Once the trees are planted, you can go to the company's website to enter the GPS locations of each tree so they can be tracked. Planting the trees has serious benefits: even if just one of the hundreds of seeds in the box is planted and survives for 30 years, that will sequester approximately one ton of carbon. Find out more here.

(Image: Sustainable Life Media)