Prison Worm farms: a Pathway to safer communities and a cleaner environment

Imagine a clear pathway from prison to self-employment based on safer communities and cleaner environment? No need to imagine, it’s already here. And it starts with prison worm farms.

Prison Worm Farm photo courtesy of The Urban Worm

Egino Emerging announces a unique solution to address several societal problems all at once.

• Over-dependence on expensive, imported chemical fertilizer that depletes overall soil health.

• A staggering percentage of prison leavers back in prison within a year due to lack of opportunities.

• Communities blighted by crime rates as jobless, prison leavers re-offend.

• Unwanted food and garden waste filling up landfills instead of being recycled.

• We all pay the price of higher taxes and higher food prices while our communities and environment suffer.

We’re changing that. All of it. With one project.

We start small. Very small. With worms. Yes, worms. Worms are a building block of our environment. Charles Darwin argued that worms are the most important animal on the planet. The Egino Emerging Vermiculture Pathway uses the power of worms to transform our society, communities, and our environment.

We are empowering prisoners and prison leavers with skilled self-employment opportunities through converting household waste into high grade fertilizer. It starts in prison. We’re working with prisons to introduce vermiculture composting to convert prison food waste into compost to donate to local authorities. Prisoners learn by doing. Prisons save money through paying less to have waste removed. Communities look to prisons as a source of fertilizer.

Upon release, prison leavers engage with Egino Emerging social enterprise. Their first-hand experience within prison meets realities of a commercial vermiculture facility. After an apprenticeship, prison leavers become self-employed shared owners of a business making and selling fertilizer.

UK agriculture benefits from a new source of low cost, locally produced fertilizer, making the nation less dependent on imports. Communities see reduced crime as prison leavers have a true vocation and pride of business ownership instead of a life of crime. Pressure on police, probation, prisons, and social support is reduced as prison leavers become financially independent and socially fulfilled.

While it may seem like a radical concept, it’s based on projects that have already proved successful. Prisons are already saving thousands per year by converting their food waste into compost. Prison leavers are already self-employed via composting with a massive change in re-offending rates. The Egino Emerging Vermiculture Pathway simply combines these efforts into one big idea.

We’re building a social enterprise to receive self-employed prison leavers, developing tools and expertise to advise prisons on introducing vermiculture into their facilities and working with experts to put it all together.

Please join us in our journey. We’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas on making this a life changing process for people, communities and the environment.