Colorado company offers banana coffins

My sexagenerian friend Bill sent me this story about banana coffins. I have never liked the idea of western burial coffins. Both my mother and father (dressed only from the waist up I learned) were bedded in iron and steel in the ground. I have requested cremation, but this is not bad. Anything that disintegrates and returns my molecules to the Great Beyond.

By CATHERINE TSAI – 1 day ago

DENVER (AP) — Casket makers catering to natural burials have offered biodegradable coffins made of such materials as recycled newspapers or cardboard. Ecoffins USA, based in Montrose, Colo., is selling caskets made of banana sheaves.

They take six months to two years to biodegrade.

Marketing director Joanna Passarelli says the company sold $40,000 worth of banana-sheaf or bamboo coffins to funeral homes last year.

At least 14 funeral homes around the country offer them.

“We either get an, ‘Oh, my,’ or, ‘That’s very interesting,’” Passarelli said. “Some people think it’s a great idea. We’ve had funeral directors look at them and say, ‘I guess you can go to hell in a handbasket now.’”

In natural burials, bodies aren’t embalmed and eventually decompose into the earth.

Ecoffins USA is the sister company of The SAWD Partnership, which has helped fuel the “green” funeral movement in the United Kingdom.

Sax-Tiedemann Funeral Home and Crematorium in Franklin, Ill., has sold one banana Ecoffin since it started offering Ecoffins in the last several months.

Stephen Dawson, owner and president of Sax-Tiedemann, said it’s not that far removed from the woven baskets funeral homes used in the 1950s and ’60s to pick up bodies from hospitals and nursing homes.

Passarelli contends the bamboo and banana coffins, made in Asia, are better for the environment than the cremation process.

Her interest in ecofriendly coffins grew after her son’s school showed the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” in which Al Gore warns of climate change. Her son came home wondering why he should bother with homework if the world would be destroyed.

“I said if everybody did one little thing it would have a snowball effect,” she said.

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Natural Litter

SnakeSkin_1595At right is a piece of litter I love to find when I am walking, running or hiking. This is the first time that I found a snake shed in the wild. This one was coiled tightly almost in a ball and abandoned on the Riverwalk Greenway this morning. It is from a very large snake. I assume that it is probably from a Northern water snake, as the Harpeth River runs along the greenway. Northern water snakes are plentiful in the area and can grow to be quite large.

Since everything natural has a purpose, I wonder what other animals do with snake sheds. Box turtle shells become homes for smaller animals and calcium supplements for larger animals. How are snake sheds re-used in the wild? I am certain that they are a warning signal to other animals that snakes are present. But do birds use them for nests? Does any animal eat them?

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Tenn. ranks high in adult, child obesity

I’m posting this report to both my blogs this morning. I feel that it relates to The Earth is Not a Trash Can because of the large amounts of fast food litter I find in the streets. How many calories does a 32-ounce soda really have? It relates to Life in ObamaNation because of the health care issue. I support affordable health care for all, but I believe that some responsibility should be placed on the individual to take care of her health. And it is hard to eat correctly with way food is manufactured in our country (Food, Inc.). We need to make some major lifestyles changes. Please eat locally grown whole foods, exercise and please, don’t litter. And I don’t agree that obesity is a genetic condition.

By Chris Echegaray • THE TENNESSEAN • July 2, 2009

    State health officials say Tennessee is making progress in fighting fat, but a report released Wednesday still ranked the state fourth in the nation for its percentage of obese adults.

    The report from Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation showed 30.2 percent of Tennessee adults are obese. It also ranked the state fifth for childhood obesity, with 36.5 percent of youth ages 10-17 in that category.

    Tennesseans have to get up from their desks for some physical activity, said Pam Davis, director of the Centennial Center for the Treatment of Obesity in Nashville.

    They must stop rewarding themselves with food, she said.

    “There’s a lot that can be done to fight this, and it starts with us as individuals,” Davis said. “I really think the state needs to see obesity as a chronic, multifactorial disease that has a genetic component.”

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    Vandalism is Trash

    BrokenSign_1592During one of my evening walks, I was dismayed to find the nice sign at the Riverwalk subdivision vandalized. I have also seen obscene graffiti on the bridge in the Riverwalk neighborhood.BrokenSign_1591

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    Ridiculous Trash in the Middle of the Road

    SanitaryNapkin_1589Sometimes I am shocked by the trash I find in the street. What litterer thought that dumping an unused (thanks!) sanitary napkin in the street would be amusing?

    I think some teens do not have enough to do this summer.

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    Cool People Care | Saving the World, Five Minutes at a Time | Information, Inspiration

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    Rolling in the Gutter

    BlueBall_1581Tonight on my walk, this small blue ball rolled past me in the gutter. Luckily I was able to pick it up before it fell into the storm drain.

    Since it was damaged, I’m sending it to the landfill unless someone can come up with a use for it.

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    Full Bottles of Water

    I found another full bottle of water yesterday as I was cycling through the neighborhood. This bottle was in a different neighborhood. I picked it up and fell off my bike, as I had only unclipped on pedal. Oh well, road rash is my life. The young tuli poplar in my yard is doing quite well on a diet of bottled water.

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    More on Bottled Water

    EcoSafeBottle_0643I’ve been waging a war on empty plastic water bottles tossed onto the streets for a few years now. Earlier this week, I noticed a full unopened plastic water bottle on my street. I did not pick it up as I thought a walker or runner might have placed it there intentionally. Since it was still there today, I picked it up, emptied the contents on a young tulip poplar in my yard and recycled the bottle.

    I’ve also found full bottles of beer left behind on an abandoned lot. Those I emptied on the ground before I recycled the bottles. Now I know that beer is good for my compost pile. Next time I’ll dump the beeer there.

    I would never drink an unopened bottle of anything that I find. Too risky for me.

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    Food Inc.

    Why I’m mostly vegetarian and eat the way I do: Food Inc.

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