Long Live Recycling, but Not Cemeteries
To the residents of Fillmore, we in Ojai are doing our best to reduce our solid waste. We already are close to meeting the 50% reduction of landfill waste as mandated by state law.
No one doubts that we will surpass that goal. So at least we are doing our best and our sympathies for the Toland Landfill intrusion into your community. But just when things seem to be headed in the earth-friendly way, Ivy Lawn cemetery files suit to prohibit the Gold Coast recycling center expansion.
This cemetery, which is on the frontage road of the Ventura Freeway, is opposed to additional traffic and noise, as if the 101 Freeway is some aberration. While certainly no one wishes to disturb the dead and annoy the surviving relatives, it does seem more than a stretch that their peace will be any more disturbed than by the huge ribbon of constant traffic that the coastal freeway already provides.
Don’t worry, Ivy Lawn, I plan on recycling myself. I plan on donating my usable organs and being cremated with my organic ashes scattered somewhere in the back country of the Sierra mountains.
Society is in no need of cemeteries. Putting bodies into overpriced brass cans with the illusion of perpetual peace borders on fraud. Eternal, indeed! Perhaps it is Ivy Lawn that should be closed to future, er, uh, clients. After all, it will only take time for the relatives of the deceased to pass on. Waste, and its proper recycling, is forever!
LELAND P. HAMMERSCHMITT
Ojai
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