Anorak

Anorak News | For Earth Day Make A Green Funerary Urn From Dryer Lint

For Earth Day Make A Green Funerary Urn From Dryer Lint

by | 22nd, April 2010

THIS Earth Day – “a birthday of sorts for the planet” – is the time to think about dying and spending eternity as filler for a line of papier-mâché urns made with dryer lint.

That’s right. I reached into my clothing tumbler, scooped out the clingy bits of fiber and fluff, sautéed them in water in a large saucepan, and stirred well. Slowly adding flour, I cooked my dryer dust dregs over medium heat, rousing constantly until the mixture held together, forming peaks. It was then poured out onto several layers of newspaper to cool.

Don’t die yet. Hang on in there. There’s more:

Many of the urns were made with a type of paper that can have seeds embedded in it, so once it breaks down, it can actually create new living things, and that is a great way to honor the memory of a loved one.

Bizzy Lizzy woz ‘ere.

So why did two saucy broads spend their glorious Sunday mucking in the muck? Green burial education, my friend. Creating awareness about the Earth. A chance to meet the neighbors. Case in point: The good folks at the Estacada Coin-Op Laundromat called and were happy to donate 20 pounds of public lint to the cause.

With added pubes!

Why make your own urn from lint?

Yes. Why?

The first and most obvious advantage is that they are environmentally friendly, as one would expect a biodegradable urn to be. It is a natural demonstration of the cycle of life: we are born, we die, we replenish the Earth, and the cycle begins again.

Cancel the titanium coffin!

Papier-mâché has many merits; it is lightweight, economical, durable, and pliable. All you need is something to operate as a form. Papier-mâché is made from a variety of sustainable bits and pieces: fiber is combined with a binder, then molded and baked. It becomes very hard and can be painted with toxic-free paints.

And shaped into all manner of things? Why not make them that look like small versions of the dead person? It being what they would have wanted…

Spotter: Bat E Bird, Source



Posted: 22nd, April 2010 | In: Reviews Comments (3) | TrackBack | Permalink