Have You ever seriously thought about What’s Green in Your Community ?

I suspect that if these folks in prison were sorting and setting up waste for recycling; they’d have plenty of time to consider new products, and new ways to recycle the waste they already generate.  I’m not talking about putting anybody out of work; but in actuality creating both workers, goods and revenue from our waste.  these newly trained workers could earn money and start to beef up an industry that is sorely in need – everywhere.

Go Ahead and Gasp at my liberalism. earlier tonite I was reviewing the recycling point schedule and trying to get my schedule to match up for the drop off points.  yes we have to go to drop off our recyclables; as there is no curbside recycling program in place yet.  that to me sounds terribly wasteful; especially in a city on a major  International waterway.

when going through my email I ran across a link to this story which was acutally pretty enlightening – check it out and then continue below

1) The Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) claims that in 2008, more than 139 million Americans had access to curbside recycling programs – in fact, 9,349 national programs were available. Hmmm, doesn’t seem like a lot, does it?

2) Recyclingfacts.org says that each American citizen generates 4.7 pounds of solid waste daily, the equivalent of 60 tons of garbage throughout the course of one lifetime, and yet the majority of it is in one way or another fully recyclable.

3) Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina and Wisconsin have recyclable material landfill bans, meaning that failure to comply by keeping plastic bottles, oil filters and wood pallets (among other materials) out of the waste stream results in violations and penalties. This has proven to be a fantastic incentive to streamlining the amount of waste they ultimately send to the landfill…perhaps the rest of the country should follow suit?

4) Making new products out of old recycled materials requires far less energy than using virgin materials – in fact, 30% less energy is necessary to reprocess old paper, 75% less energy for old copper and steel, and a whopping 95% less for old aluminum. Interestingly, more than 70% of the aluminum that is circulation right now is derived from virgin sources, and yet just 50% of the cans used in our country are actually recycled (compared to the global average of 63%).

5) The EPA determined that in 2008, just 2.12 million tons of the 30.05 million total tons of recyclable materials generated in the United States were actually recycled – the remaining glass, plastic, metal and paper materials (27.93 tons) were deposited in landfills.

6) Between the consumption of bathroom tissue, paper towels, magazines, newspapers and other wood pulp based products, the typical U.S. citizen is responsible for theoretically cutting down 525 trees in their lifetime (in other words, seven each year). The EPA says that if each of us merely swapped one single roll of conventional toilet paper for a 100% recycled alternative, we could free up 1.2 million cubic feet of landfill space, save 169 million gallons of water and prevent 470,000 trees from being pulped.

7) The number one recycled material in America is newspaper, 5.51 million tons of which were reclaimed and reprocessed in 2008. The EPA says that the remaining 780,000 tons were disposed of and if we recycled just 1/10 of the newsprint that passes through our hands each year, we could actually prevent 25 million trees from being cut down.

Despite the fact that the bulk of recyclable items can be sold to various firms for reprocessing, many municipalities don’t break even offering the service to the community, which is why so many of them don’t make it available.

9) 63,750 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions can be avoided altogether by recycling all household paper, glass, metal and plastic – which is the same volume of CO2 that a typical vehicle releases in a 5 year period.

10) Globally, 20 to 50 million metric tons of e‐waste are produced annually. It is estimated that in 2007 in the United States alone, just 18% of unwanted televisions and computers were recycled (the equivalent of 6.3 million units and 48.2 million units respectively), whereas a mere 10% of unwanted cell phones (14 million units) were recycled despite the fact that recycling programs are more accessible than ever.

Pretty Interesting Huh ?

I wondered if we could think a bit outside the box. why not use the energy we have to recycle more ?  if the federal government said to the states that their cut of tax revenues for federal highway improvement or infrastructure improvements would be linked to their ability to become Greener; no doubt we’d see  a green response;  probably  immediately.

one of the things I’d  personally like to see implemented almost immediately is prisoner staffed recycling  and sorting  programs for recycling.

hey I’m not kidding here.  we pay for people to sit in a heated square box 24 hrs a day doing nothing to contribute to their feeding and upkeep financially during their incarceration; or to repay the people for their mistakes.

Why not implement immediate prisoner staffed recycling programs in every state and county ?

let them sort cans, bottles, plastic, glass.  let them learn to  properly sort the waste from the major cities; and then recycle it into either upcycled goods or make it reusable in prison industrial projects.

one of the biggest  needs I could think of would be paper sorting. yes paper. the amount of trees we could save by starting there would probably save the amazon.  we need to think about tomorrow, more seriously.  paper is not dangerous in the sense that it can be used to fashion a weapon; so it would be the safest place to begin, and it would answer the biggest need. paper is a pain to recycle, sort and bail. prisoners have no one to complain to for what they’ve gotten themselves into – so maybe the paper will listen to their stories and help them to see the reality of their mistakes.

I suspect that if these folks in prison were sorting and setting up waste for recycling; they’d have plenty of time to consider new products, and new ways to recycle the waste they already generate.  I’m not talking about putting anybody out of work; but in actuality creating both workers, goods and revenue from our waste.  these newly trained workers could earn money and start to beef up an industry that is sorely in need – everywhere.

the new companies who could benefit should be owned by the communities who pay for the prisons.  put the prisoners labours back into the hands of those who can most use them – the citizens who are probably the ones the prisoners are paying reciprocity to; by being incarcerated.

Tax dollars and state funds for the department of corrections could eventually be rerouted back into the budget to help the people, instead of housing prisoners. the prisoners could be trained and certified to work as waste management specialists when they were released. thereby killing two birds with one stone, so to say                                 .

some of the more ingenius longterm prisoners could be put into workshop settings developing new products from the recyclables. this would surely generate lots of great new green goods, and good workers ready to pay taxes on their release from incarceration.  every one of them needs to complete a job requirement so this could help with that need.

As well it would help to fund new projects for this workshop.  state universities and corrections departments could start the Rehabilitation Process;  instead of just warehousing and disabling bodies.  an idle mind is the devils workshop;  so why not empower those minds to think green instead.

isn’t it time we started thinking with our brains instead of our problems ?

Lets hear what you think about the possibility of  Prisoner Recycling Programs. I intend to send this idea in to both my state dept of corrections and the governors’ office as they can obviously use a little help getting this figured out, before we are all covered over by a mountain of our own wasted money.

Lets Sort It Out People,

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