Every day there is talk about saving
the environment and making sure everyone does their part to provide for future
generations. Yes, it is true there is only one Earth and we must do what we can
to make sure that what took billions of years to form is not destroyed beyond
Mother Nature’s control. There are now 7 billion people living in the world in
2012 and 20 million species existing together, there are a lot of resources
that can be cut down on to keep the environment a viable habitat for all.
According to Cunningham &
Cunningham, "One of the easiest ways to avoid energy shortages and to
relieve environmental and health effects of our current energy technologies is
simply to use less". There is one place where you might least expect that
energy conservation efforts are being enforced and frogs are being saved: the
prison. In Washington State the project is called Sustainability in Prisons and
it is spearheaded by the Evergreen State College and Washington State
Department of Corrections. Started in 2004, the projects main focus is to bring
science and nature into prisons. Since the summer of 2012, inmates have
successfully raised 250 Oregon spotted frogs which were declining in population
and released them into the wild (Johnson, 2012).
The inmates are paid prison wage of
forty-two cents per hour for a ten hour work day. Their duties include
monitoring frogs’ water temperature and collecting hundreds of crickets as a
food source for the frogs. There are other various jobs that 2000 inmates do to
help make the prison a more green facility.
The goal is that by 2030, prisons
across the United States will have "zero-net energy use" (Johnson,
2012). The prisons in Washington all use their inmates to construct bins and
compost food scraps, sort items for recycling , use and maintain non-motor
grass cutters, plant and oversee vegetables in the garden, make and collect
rainwater in barrels for irrigation for the gardens, and plant and grow native
plants and flowers ("Sustainability in prisons," 2012). All these
methods have helped the environment by not depending on many outside resources
like water to use for the plants and flowers which has reduced their need by
100 million gallons of portable water each year (Johnson, 2012). The amount of
garbage that was once shipped out has now been reduced by half and it continues
to drop even though the amount of inmates increases ("Sustainability in
prisons," 2012).
Other way frogs can be saved is by
limiting the amount energy we use. Stop buying bottled water in areas that water
is already safe to consume is one of the best things one can do to keep our
environment safe. In 2005 Americans bought 30 million bottles of water and a
fraction of those bottles were recycled (Kriger, 2008-2011). It then took 17
million barrels of oil to make those bottles which is enough oil to fuel 1
million cars. Keep in mind that Aquafina and Dasani are just bottled tap water
and 25% of other bottled water companies are also just taking away water from
your resource and selling it back to you for 100 times more of the cost
(Kriger, 2008-2011).
Using rechargeable batteries will help the frogs and our energy as well. The metals that are used to produce batteries are toxic to frogs and cause limb deformities, but by using rechargeable batteries we are mining for less metal and the batteries are also recyclable after a few hundred recharges (Kriger, 2008-2011). Recycling helps keep the metals from getting into the frogs sensitive skin.
Sources:
Cunningham, W., & Cunningham, M. A. (2012). Environmental science a global concern. (12 ed., pp. 445-471). New York, New York: McGraw-Hill.
Johnson, K. (2012, September 27). Raising frogs for freedom, prison project opens doors. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/us/raising-frogs-for-freedom-prison-project-opens-doors.html?_r=0
Kriger, K. (2008-2011). How to help save frogs. Retrieved from http://www.savethefrogs.com/how-to-help/index.html
Sustainability in prisons project. (2012). Retrieved from http://blogs.evergreen.edu/sustainableprisons/
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