This week’s (4/18/07) Willamette Week has some laugh-aloud and a-HA! stories on some of the lesser known “sustainable” ways of living – and dying. Two certainly caught my eye for their law-connections.
Sustainable Kink: A local couple explores the last eco frontier: sex toys
“Last October, Alliyah Mirza and Jonas Sapienza started Earth Erotics, an online retailer of eco-friendly adult toys. Sustainable dildos, if you will. “We’re like the natural-food store of sex toys,” says Mirza, who studies environmental law at Lewis & Clark College by day and updates EE’s website (eartherotics.com) by night. “Our toys are like organic food. Non-organics aren’t going to kill you, but organics are a better option. We provide a better option.”
Sustainable Funeral: How do you say goodbye in a socially conscious fashion?
“…There’s the “eco-pod,” a casket made out of recycled paper (just think of it! Buried in recycled Willamette Weeks!), which ranges from $75 to $2,700. There’s also fair-trade bamboo coffins, handwoven seagrass and willow caskets, and, of course, the plain pine box. (The average price of a conventional casket is $3,100, according to the Funeral Directors Association of America.) Yeah, but what about cremation? Get this: Crematoriums are responsible for something like 9 percent of mercury emissions due to the incineration of dental work and embalming fluid (we knew dentistry was evil)….”