Combustible Comestibles: Yikes. My favorite tipster forwarded me this sad item from Belgium about an unfortunate elderly gent who was killed when a compost container spontaneously caught fire and burned him.

 

Fortunately my source´s source knows some Dutch. Otherwise I probably would have had to wade into that labyrinth of pidgin-English horrors known as the AltaVista Babelfish Web Page Translator. (Try it sometime; the results can be hysterical.)

 

Anyway, my source´s source says the story translates roughly thus:

 

Flame from Green Compost Container Kills Elderly Man

 

BRUSSELS -- A spontaneous flame from a green box/compost container has over the weekend cost the life of an 81-year-old man from the Flemish town of Hamme. It is possible that explosive gases had built up in the green box/compost container. The flame caught fire on the man´s clothes, which then burned him.

 

"Next to the vegetables, fruit and garden waste, there were Pampers in the container. Maybe this had a reaction?" asks the daughter of the deceased Monday. "We cannot understand how it is possible. The green box/compost container was standing in the sun, but is that forbidden?" (End)

 

Earth-Friendly Rug-Rat Rearing: Speaking of Pampers®©TM, if any of you out there in Inboxland are thinking about venturing into parenthood -- Fools! Don´t do it! Turn back! (just kidding) -- you may find some useful bits of advice in this article from E/The Environmental Magazine about raising "natural babies" in our wondrous chemical-filled world.

 

Note to self -- Idea for get-rich-quick scheme -- Infant-size gas masks.

 

I ask you: What could be more adorable?

 

Pete Fehrenbach is assistant managing editor of Waste News. Past installments of this column are collected in the Inbox archive.

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