Green prison: Where security meets ecology
WASHINGTON STATE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
A green prison sounds unlikely – especially in the US. But a ground-breaking facility in America wants to improve the environment as well as crime rates.
Environmentally friendly prisons. Liberals think they’re a no-brainer, right-wingers might view them as just another hand in the public purse. Do the world’s incarcerated now have a responsibility to save the planet?
The Washington State Department of Corrections seems to think so. This week, the US Green Building Council awarded the department North America’s most prestigious environmental award – a plaque for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – for a 21-building, medium-security extension at its Coyote Ridge Corrections Centre in Connell, a small city in the state’s Franklin County. Since the extension’s completion in October 2008, each year the penitentiary uses 5.5 million gallons less water than its conventional equivalents, saving its operators around $370,000 (£235,807) in energy costs over the period. Its solar panels occupy 16,929sq ft and it floods its corridors with natural light…
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