U.S. Prisons Going Green. Applause?
Recycling is the new buzz word in prisons and I’m not talking about the recycling of inmates. Today’s prisons are going green.
Prisons around the United States are busy establishing organic gardens, composting, collecting rainwater, recycling uniforms and creating alternative energy sources such as wind turbines and solar panels. Combined, these efforts will definitely go a long way to reducing each prisons enormous annual carbon footprint. And in the end, who knows, it could be a way helping inmates learn new skills that might reduce the chance of them being recycled back to prison once they are released (the reincarceration rate is abysmal in the United States).
Creating sustainable, energy efficient prisons also reduces costs, something that is extremely important given that the rising prison population is costing the government billions of dollars (and prison is often a for-profit enterprise).
Recently, 6,200 solar panels installed at the Ironwood State Prison in Blythe, California send enough energy back to the grid to power 4,100 homes a year. And one prison in Indiana installed a wind turbine that generates around 10 kilowatts of energy an hour, saving the prison over $2000 a year.
And yet.
To celebrate the greening – both environmental and financial – of the prison system seems an uncomfortable compartmentalization of our existence. The prison system is one currently rife with controversy – and discrimination.
Is this the kind of green we can consider growth?
Image: Mikee Showbiz
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4 Comments
January 28th, 2009 at 7:33 am
Great there is a green movement with prisons but true, not the kind of growth that balances what exists.
How about we look at it that it’s good they are at least learning something other than how to create a weapon?
My good friend’s husband works at a prison and he’s having a hard time dealing with prisoners who treat him like garbage throwing feces at him when he walks by, plotting his demise….you might imagine it gets to his head pretty bad as a non-incarcerated human.
Prison isn’t good for anyone involved. Gardening and composting are.
Yin and Yang.
January 28th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Yes, this is a very yin-yang kind of issue! Even better than teaching prisoners gardening skills is to teach all willing people, especially those in at-risk neighborhoods, organic gardening skills, and provide locations and opportunities where they can use those skills to make a living, start their own businesses, serve their community, and stay away from the temptations of crime! Better for everyone involved.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
January 28th, 2009 at 11:27 am
This is GREAT, I never thought that this industry would go green to soon! Yet other major companies are not, how bazaar!
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