Garbage Museum facts for kids
Logo for the Garbage Museum
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| Established | 1993 |
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| Dissolved | Closed August 25, 2011 |
| Location | 1410 Honeyspot Road Extension, Stratford, Connecticut |
| Visitors | 32,200 in 2008 |
The Garbage Museum was a unique museum in Stratford, Connecticut, USA. It was all about waste management and recycling. The museum opened in 1994 and was built to teach people about garbage. It cost about $5 million to build. Many towns in the area helped pay for it.
The museum was run by the Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority. Its main goal was to help visitors learn about waste. You could even watch how recyclables were sorted! A very famous exhibit was "Trash-o-saurus." This was a huge dinosaur made entirely out of trash. The museum closed in 2011 because it ran out of money.
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How the Museum Worked
The Garbage Museum was part of a real recycling center. It opened in 1993. Nineteen local towns helped fund the museum. They also sent their recyclables to this center.
Visitors could see how recycling worked. You could watch materials get sorted. Then, they were crushed and baled. After that, they were sent off to be made into new products. The Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority managed the museum and the recycling operations.
Fun and Educational Exhibits
The museum wanted to teach visitors about waste. It aimed to help people make good choices about garbage. The director, Valerie Knight-Di-Gangi, said they made exhibits fun. This helped kids learn about important environmental issues. The goal was to make a lasting impact.
The museum had special teachers. They created and led all the educational programs. The recycling facility processed about 60,000 tons of recyclables each year. These came from 20 nearby towns.
Explore Recycling Benefits
Exhibits showed why recycling is important. For example, you could learn about recycling drink cans. This saves resources like bauxite, which is used to make aluminum. Recycling also helps reduce air and water pollution.
One exhibit was a walk-through tunnel. It showed what a compost pile looks like. There were also interactive games. One game was called "Trash Bash." Contestants answered questions about trash. If they got it wrong, others could dump trash on them! The museum also displayed art made from recycled items. One artwork was a life-size person made from milk containers.
In 2004, a new exhibit was added. It showed how trash can be turned into energy. This exhibit used marbles to represent trash. The marbles moved from bins to toy trucks. Then, the trucks took the "trash" to a power plant. This plant generated energy to open and close a toy drawbridge.
Meet Trash-o-saurus!
A very popular exhibit was "Trash-o-saurus." This was a giant dinosaur sculpture. It was about 12 feet (3.7 meters) tall. It was also 24 feet (7.3 meters) long. This amazing dinosaur weighed one ton!
Artist Leo Sewell created Trash-o-saurus. He used all sorts of junk to build it. This included "no parking" signs, cell phones, and license plates. The sculpture showed how much garbage and recyclables one person in Connecticut throws away each year. The exhibit taught visitors about recycling. It even had a checklist to help you find different items in the sculpture. In 2011, the museum celebrated Trash-o-saurus's 16th birthday!
Why the Museum Closed
In 2009, the museum faced money problems. Contracts for the recycling plant ended. Also, the price of recycled materials dropped. This was due to a tough economy. The museum started asking for donations. They also began charging a small entrance fee.
The Internal Revenue Service said donations to the museum could be tax-deductible. This helped with fundraising. Students from East Haven High School even made a video about the museum. It won an award and brought more attention to the museum.
However, the museum's costs were high. It needed about $200,000 to $250,000 each year to operate. By 2011, the budget was $341,000. This covered staff, programs, and building costs. Despite fundraising efforts, the museum closed on August 25, 2011. The Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority voted to close it.
Later, in 2014, the Connecticut government tried to help. They approved a plan to give up to $100,000 to the Authority. This money was meant to help fund the museum.
