• Tip Jar

  Like what we're doing?
  Got a spare sawbuck?
  Help us pay for site maintenance and reporting and we'll think happy thoughts about you sometimes.
  $100 gets you a personal, paperless thank-you video from Dave and Laura!
  $500 gets you... five personal, paperless thank-you videos from Dave and Laura and a tote bag!

  

• Big Green Tag Cloud

  animals beer biking Boulder Boulder City Council boulder county carbon dioxide city of boulder climate change coal Colorado commuting compost CU Denver diy earth day education endangered species Energy energy efficiency food fort collins gardening Global Warming green guest post Lafayette Longmont movies NCAR open space Recycling Rocky Mountain National Park smart grid solar solar panels the cove University of Colorado Valmont coal plant vegetable garden waste Xcel Xcel Energy zero waste

  WP Cumulus Flash tag cloud by Roy Tanck and Luke Morton requires Flash Player 9 or better.

• Mountain Biking: Rubber side down

  • Time for a Turnaround
    Well, my friends, things are finally looking up, and good timing, too, since I’m sure you’re all sick of me bitching. Recent bike build, including wheels… fun! In what feels like a fairly short time, I’ve come from sitting around … Continue reading → […]
  • This Raised My Pulse
    Hey, baby… wanna ride? I may be injured, but I’m not dead yet. I can still have racy thoughts. Here’s more info. In other news, UBI was an awesome success! I had a blast. I highly recommend it. Overhaul day…. … Continue reading → […]

• Edgy Veggie

Green prisons, Bernie Madoff and Boulder

Recently, we posted on a Boulder ballot issue over a loan that would help make the Boulder County jail more energy efficient. That got us thinking about other jails.

Did you know that a weekend at Bernie's would be a LEED-certified weekend?

Here are a few other interesting jail-related green items from around the country:

Con-Post

At the Cedar Creek Corrections Center in Washington, inmates of the minimum-security facility, raise bees, grow organic tomatoes and lettuce, compost 100 percent of food waste and even recycle shoe scraps that are made into playground turf. The program was facilitated by the Sustainable Prisons Project.

If it’s yellow let it mellow, if its brown flush it down, but not very often

Wasco State Prison in California replaced old lights with new energy efficient ones. The new bulbs also give off less heat and make the temperature of the dormitories about ten degrees cooler. In turn, this cuts down on the air conditioning usage. Also, the toilets are hooked up to a new water conservation system that limits inmates to two flushes in five minutes. A third flush automatically locks the toilet and prevents the inmate from flushing for 30 minutes.

Pickle barrel cisterns–on sale.

North Carolina’s Department of Corrections switched to chemical-free cleaners and vegetable-based inks. Because of a water shortage, inmates converted 50-gallon pickle barrels into small cisterns that capture rainwater. The cisterns are now available for purchase.

Weekend at Bernie’s?

Bernie Madoff, the man who made the word “ponzi” delightfully relevant last year, is serving an extended stay at a pretty impressive LEED-certified prison.

Enjoy your water-cooler fodder!

–James Collector and Dave Burdick

Tip Jar

Like what we're doing? Got a spare sawbuck? Help us pay for site maintenance and reporting and we'll think happy thoughts about you sometimes. $100 gets you a personal, paperless thank-you video from Dave and Laura! $500 gets you... five personal, paperless thank-you videos from Dave and Laura and a tote bag!