This week on Earth Beat, it’s spring break and we need a green break, so we have done a little story recycling and are re-airing segments about dying green, driving green, and building green.

THE ECOLOGY OF DYING

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust
Many of us find it a comforting thought that when we die, our bodies return to the soil and feed the circle of life. Sadly, the reality is a little less romantic. Joe Sehee, of the Green Burial Council, says that modern-day burial techniques are often unnecessarily polluting to the environment, but there are green options.

Listen to the interview

Generating energy from cremations?
One crematorium in Taiwan has figured out a way to generate electricity from the heat coming out of the ovens. But in this conservative Buddhist island, the idea is agitating some age-old superstitions. I spoke to Correspondent Keith Perron in Taipei and he explained exactly what they were up to.

Listen to the interview

Ashes to ashes, crumbs to crumbs
Swedish biologist Susanne Wiigh-Masak suggests our remains could be frozen and broken up into small pink crumbs of organic matter and disposed of in a more sustainable manner. She calls her technique promession.

Listen to the segment

Pros and cons
Each funeral choice has its own pros and cons. Back to Joe Sehee from the Green Burial council who says they make a point of saying that there are no clear right and wrong ways to have a green death.

Listen to the interview

Have you thought about how you'd like your body treated? Become an Earth Beat fan on Facebook and tell us your sentiments.

SILENT BUT DEADLY

The sound of silence
Electric cars are too quiet - they produce such little sound that at low speed they are twice as likely to hit a pedestrian as combustion engine cars are. We should add sounds, says Lawrence Rosenblum, a perceptional psychologist at the University of California, Riverside.

Listen to the interview

Silent killers
Paul Scott, vice president of electric car advocacy organisation 'Plug in America' disagrees. He says it's crazy to add noise to cars after we spent so much energy cutting down on noise pollution.

Listen to the interview

GARDENS GOING UP

Green walls
Patrick Blanc is a botanist who pioneered the idea of so-called vertical gardens. The idea is to use plants to purify the air and to insulate walls. Nowadays you can see some of Patrick’s amazing gardens on the walls of cities around the world. He told Earth Beat that he never intended to start a movement – he just wanted to keep his fish tank clean.
 
Listen to the conversation.
 
Green roofs
Mathijs Bourdrez is a roof doctor. He considers many of the roofs in cities to be unwell because they have no green on them – just bare tar and concrete. He’s determined to change all this, one roof at a time. The doctor makes a house call to Marnie’s apartment.
 
Listen to the roof tour
 
Green greenhouses
When you were a kid, you may have played with a magnifying glass, concentrating the sunlight into a white-hot spot. Dutch scientist Dr. Piet Sonneveld took that idea and used it to invent a greenhouse which produces electricity. Earth Beat’s Thijs Westerbeek reports.
 
Listen to the report
 

NEXT WEEK ON EARTH BEAT
Usually we’re really busy and we race into work by car or train and start tapping away on our computers and sending emails hither and thither, but… this… week… on… Earth Beat… we’re… slowing… down…
From the way you cook, to shipping goods around the world we find out why slow is often more sustainable… in the next edition of Earth Beat from Radio Netherlands Worldwide.