Eco-Prisons

After watching Candida Brady's "Trashed" documentary, I became much more re-concerned about the implementation of incineration plants after the seemingly calming presentation of Covanta's incineration plant in Indianapolis. I was also exposed to a new concept it which I had never before heard about, the idea of eco-prisons; or prisons that attempt to operate by means of "green" efforts and maintain a sustainable lifestyle, while putting the inmates to work on sustainability or eco-friendly projects.

I became very intrigued by this concept which brought me to further research its development and usage. I came across an article titled 14 Green Prisons on a website called the Mother Nature Network. Here, I came to learn that prisons such as Cedar Creek Corrections Center, in Littlerock Washington, 60 prisoners participate in a program in which they compost the prisons' food waste, grow organic vegetables, collect rainwater for gardens, raise bees, and hand sort recyclables. In addition to these works being great steps forward for efforts to make prisons more sustainable, the director of the projects at the prison noted, "Any prison system will tell you that idleness is a bad thing. If we don’t have stuff for them to do then we’re just going to hire more staff". In other words, keeping the inmates occupied with these eco-projects not only benefits the environment and sustainability efforts but also the safety efforts made by the prison staff. A prison in Norway utilizes solar panels and uses wood heating systems rather than coal. Inmates eat food that was grown without the use of any chemicals. The inmates live in unlocked living units and take after various livestock that provide for the institution such as chickens, cows, sheep, and even a fishing boat. This prison earned the nickname "Bastoey Country Club". Even the infamous Alcatraz in San Francisco is undergoing a multimillion dollar stimulus project in order to install solar panels and a water catchment system for irrigation.

While these prisons may prove to be more expensive than traditional ones, I think that these types of communities also provide newly developing models that portray small living communities can interact in order to live sustainably, hopefully this model can be reapplied to institutions other than prisons at some point in an effort to create self sufficient environments . Given the model may have minor changes in structure, I think it is an interesting concept and could prove to provide interesting ground work if small living communities became a major solution for sustainability problems in the future.