Recycling the Discarded By Damon Orion, originally published by Resilience.org September 12, 2024
This article was produced by Local Peace Economy.
The stigma of a criminal conviction can be a major barrier to community reentry for recently released prisoners. A December 2021 report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics highlighted the employment barrier faced by the more than 50,000 who were incarcerated, with 33 percent of them being unable to find any employment "over four years" after their release from prison in 2010.
Meanwhile, a 2002 study by the U.S. Department of Justice of employers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, found that
"ex-offenders… [were] one-half to one-third as likely to receive initial consideration from employers relative to equivalent applicants without criminal records."
In 2018, the Prison Policy Initiative reported that more than 27 percent of formerly incarcerated individuals were unemployed—a figure "higher than the total U.S. unemployment rate during any historical period, including the Great Depression."....
The Compost Co-op, a worker-owned service in Greenfield, Massachusetts, offers formerly incarcerated individuals an alternative to this path. Its workers collect compost from customers' curbsides and bring them to western Massachusetts's largest commercial composting site, Martin's Farm. This enables staff members to earn a living wage through meaningful work.....
Positive Environmental Impact
With 30-40 percent of food in the U.S. going into the trash—nearly 60 million tons per year—the Compost Co-op serves as a model for food waste reduction. It also promotes environmental health. As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency notes, composting reduces greenhouse gas emissions and "improves a community's ability to adapt to adverse climate impacts by helping soil absorb water and prevent runoff of pollutants during floods. It also helps soil hold more water for longer, mitigating the effects of drought."....
link from nakedcapitalism.com
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