Composting on the inside

Apart from inmates, their families or staff, not many people see the inside of a prison and most would not wish to. Yet the Sustainability in Prison’s Project, (SPP) of which I saw only a small part on my visit to Washington State Correctional Centre in Shelton, approximately 130kms South-West of Seattle, was inspiring and truly the essence of restorative justice in its fullest. There, the staff and inmates, with support from the Sustainability in Prisons Project have created an extensive compost program, complete with black soldier larvae, chickens and worm farms.

Emily Passarelli and Jen Bass of SPP organised my visit to see the compost program in person. The SPP is a partnership with Evergreen State College and the Washington State Department of Corrections, incarcerated individuals, and other outside organisations. Their mission is to “empower sustainable change by bringing nature, science, and environmental education into prisons”.

As well as composting, the SPP includes several other initiatives including:

· Vegetable, fruit and flower gardening,

· Beekeeping, chicken care,

· Aquaponics,

· Prairie conservation nursery,

· Butterfly breeding programs,

· Building nesting, feeding & habitat boxes

· Turtle care,

· Dog training and cat socialisation,

· Waste sorting and recycling,

· Quilting, crochet, toy making and cabinetry using scrap materials

· Repairing and refurbishing bicycles, wheelchairs, furniture and computers.

These initiatives are spread out across the 12 prisons in Washington State. The food and other products produced are mostly donated to schools and charities. One of the incarcerated founders of the compost program, Nick, gave a very inspiring TED talk “The Power of Sustainability” where he described the transformative effect that these programs can have on prisoners serving their time. He talks about the concept of a ‘sustainable prison’ where not only food and objects are recycled but people also are transformed through forming connections with nature and useful, sustainability-oriented, meaningful work.

The composting program originally started in Monroe Correctional Facility where prisoners developed a significant program based around black soldier fly larvae and worms. Since the pandemic, the composting program has changed quite a bit as the incarcerated people who founded the program were transferred to Shelton and have rebuilt the program from scratch. The prisoners who run the program are called ‘compost technicians’ giving gravity to their knowledge and skillset, not only as composters but as designers of a system that incorporates observation, organisation, cooperation and a deep understanding of natural processes.

To make the program more accessible to all prisons they (in partnership with SPP staff and external experts) have developed a Foundations in Composting course. The course is designed to be delivered in a peer-to-peer format – whereby incarcerated individuals teach each other and learn at the same time. The idea is that no one needs to be the class “teacher”, no one person does most of the talking and class time should look more like a meeting or discussion.

On my visit, as expected, I saw that the prison from the outside was a stark, bland-looking series of buildings surrounded by high razor-wire fencing, surveillance cameras and a watchhouse. Once through the security checks, I met Jeff Sanders, a former prison guard and now the lead staff member responsible for the composting programs at the centre. He introduced me to the Compost Technicians – Nick, Juan, Rick and Tomas. I noticed a lovely comradery between them – a shared ‘big picture’ goal. We had an initial chat about the program and Nick described the group as being ‘environmentalists’, on a powerful mission to make meaning out of their existence to do good for the world. They have designed a proposal that could potentially see the prison compost 100% of the food waste produced and composted within its walls. The compost produced from the program is used in the prison gardens to grow food which is donated to local schools, shelters and charities.

I was shown a small room where the food scraps first arrive from the chow hall. They use a bin lifter to tip the food scraps onto a stainless-steel bench and hand-sort any contaminants. This material is then pushed into a large sink where it is fed through an adapted Insinkerator (a mechanical grinder fitted into the plug hole which reduces food scrap particles). The team had re-routed the outflow so that only the liquid component is expelled to the sewer, and the solids are collected in buckets. The resultant ground-up food scraps are then mixed with bokashi mixture, compacted to prevent air, lidded, labelled and stored for the prescribed amount of time to ferment. This is then fed to worm farms or the compost bins in the yard along with cardboard egg trays for the carbon component.

We walked through the grounds, past the vegetable farm, via the chicken run and beehive area, through the greenhouse to the main worm farm shelter. The worm farms are all made from repurposed, upcycled materials – old pickling barrels, pieces of waste wood, sections of cloth – Nick, AKA “the Worm Dude”, informed me that hardly a cent has been spent on building the infrastructure and another level of satisfaction comes from thinking creatively to make use of what is available. Everything is kept neat and tidy and well cared for.

We then visited the black soldier fly lab – a very scientific small room that houses the fly breeding program and another part of their food waste recycling program. Black soldier fly larvae are native to the southeastern part of the United States and are voracious consumers of food waste in their larval stage. Rick, AKA “Lord of the Flies” showed me the process they use to breed the black

soldier fly larvae so that they continue feeding right throughout the year. Even in warm areas like Brisbane, black soldier flies hibernate over winter however they reappear in the compost bin naturally once the weather starts heating up. However, since Washington’s winter temperatures can be quite extreme, it is necessary to create the right conditions to keep up the supply.

After the tour we all sat around a table to discuss the program and one thing I found really interesting was the approach the group take to getting other inmates to separate their food correctly in the chow hall (in the world over one of the biggest challenges local governments faces is getting people to put the right thing in the right bin). The Compost Technicians in the chow hall take turns standing by the bin and, with a positive approach and a smile on their face, encourage people to separate the rubbish from the food waste and empty it into the right bin and thank them when they do so. They identified that some of the inmates resisted the composting program because it was saving the prison money in waste management costs. They felt that by participating in the program this would be helping ‘the man’ or the system that got them incarcerated and marginalised in the first place. However, by taking this personalised and friendly approach and encouraging people to see the bigger picture – the environmental impact they would be having by composting the waste – the team has had success. At the time I visited they were close to achieving 50,000 pounds of waste collected through the program and in celebration of that milestone, each inmate would be served a slice of carrot cake to thank them for their contribution by separating their food scraps. As they never receive cake in prison this event was going to be a big deal.

In the time I spent at the facility discovering the program, I saw grown men cuddling chickens, tenderly caring for worms, marvelling at black soldier fly larvae, smiling at each other to get participation in the compost program and giving away cake to celebrate an environmental milestone. The experience further cemented for me the power of composting as a community in helping people develop as human beings by finding their place in nature. I later read Juan’s story in a Biocycle article. He writes:

“At one point in my life society was ready to throw me away for good. But something beautiful and unintended happened. The way in which people responsibly get rid of food waste has not only showed me how to save the world, it has returned my humanity and self-worth — and given me a clear path for a career upon release. And it has definitely repurposed me as a human being and given me a way to redemption”

I also came across another beautiful piece by former inmate, Steve Mahoney, who describes the composting process – starting off as a mess of food waste which “seems fit only for maggots, flies and vermin” and then turns into a compost which is “dark brown, almost black, and has the smell of rich, luxuriant topsoil”. He likens this to his own transformation during his time in prison from a suicidal, violent, addicted state to thinking more clearly and positively about his future. He writes, “My hope is that when I am released I will be like the compost and be used by society to produce a harvest that will benefit others”.

With 1700 inmates at the facility in Shelton and only 6 of them working on the composting program with little to no funding what they have achieved is really impressive. In the USA as a whole, there are approximately 2.2 million people incarcerated at any time and the potential for expanding the program across the country is significant. Sadly this “warehousing” of people can lead to depression, further drug abuse, violence and recidivism (prisoners reoffending on release). Surely giving people meaning by being part of environmental solutions that impact us all would be a better use of time for incarcerated folk. With the pending impacts of climate change already increasing, the urgency is greater and a significant army of people with plenty of time on their hands could be mobilised and at the same time provide real healing and atonement for past deeds. This program has the potential, if extended to other prisons around the world, to process significant amounts of food scraps into a high-quality compost for growing food without significant financial investment and to change the lives of prisoners and make for more peaceful souls released into the outside world.

I am reminded again of how the forces of nature in the soil, often unseen by the human eye, can have such profoundly transformative powers. Beyond the obvious effect of turning food scraps into a dark, rich and crumbly soil amendment, the process of composting can help people living in a hostile and stark environment to find meaning and connections to the wider processes of life and death and care of the Earth.

Visiting Washington State Correctional Center was part of my research for a Churchill Fellowship exploring education methods and partnership models to support community composting. For more details visit the Churchill Fellows Portal where you can also download the full report.

All images courtesy of SPP.