Garbage Museum facts for kids
Logo for the Garbage Museum
|
|
| Established | 1993 |
|---|---|
| Dissolved | Closed August 25, 2011 |
| Location | 1410 Honeyspot Road Extension, Stratford, Connecticut |
| Visitors | 32,200 in 2008 |
The Garbage Museum was a special place in Stratford, Connecticut, USA. It was a museum all about waste management and recycling. The museum opened in 1994 and was part of a real recycling center.
It taught visitors how to manage trash and why recycling is important. A group of 19 towns helped fund the museum. The Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority ran the museum. One of its most famous exhibits was Trash-o-saurus, a huge dinosaur made from garbage. The museum closed its doors on August 25, 2011.
Contents
What Was the Garbage Museum?
The Garbage Museum was built for about $5 million. It opened in 1993. Many local towns helped pay for it. These towns were part of the Southwest Connecticut Recycling Committee. They sent their recyclables to this facility.
The museum was inside an active recycling plant. Visitors could watch how recyclable materials were sorted. They saw them crushed and baled. Then, these materials were sent off to be made into new products. The museum helped people understand the journey of their recyclables.
Exploring the Exhibits
The museum wanted to help visitors make smart choices about waste. It aimed to teach them about waste management in a fun way. The goal was to make kids feel powerful about protecting the environment. Educational specialists created and led programs at the museum.
The Garbage Museum was a working recycling facility. It had a special area where visitors could watch the operations. This plant processed about 60,000 tons of recyclables each year. These came from 20 nearby towns.
Exhibits showed the good things about recycling. For example, they explained how recycling drink cans saves energy. It also reduces air and water pollution. Another exhibit was a tunnel that looked like a compost pile.
Interactive exhibits made learning fun. There was a general store and a "Trash Bash" game. In "Trash Bash," contestants answered questions. 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 crushed milk containers.
In 2004, a new exhibit showed how trash can make energy. It used marbles to represent trash. The marbles moved from bins to toy trucks. The trucks took the "trash" to an energy plant. This plant then generated energy to open a toy drawbridge.
Trash-o-saurus: A Dino Made of Junk!
A very popular exhibit was Trash-o-saurus. This dinosaur was 12 feet (3.7 meters) tall. It was also 24 feet (7.3 meters) long. The dinosaur was made entirely out of junk! It weighed one ton.
Artist Leo Sewell created this amazing sculpture. He used "no parking" signs, cell phones, license plates, and other items. Trash-o-saurus showed how much garbage and recyclables one person in Connecticut throws away each year. The exhibit taught about the importance of recycling. It even had a checklist to help visitors find different items in the sculpture. In April 2011, the museum celebrated Trash-o-saurus's 16th birthday.
Why Did the Museum Close?
The museum started asking for a $2 entrance fee in September 2008. It also began trying to raise money. The United States Internal Revenue Service said that donations to the museum could be tax-deductible. This helped with fundraising.
However, the museum faced money problems in 2009. The recycling plant's contracts ended on June 30. Also, the prices for recycled materials dropped. This was due to the 2008 financial crisis. The museum cost between $200,000 and $250,000 to run each year.
Some students from East Haven High School made a short film about the museum. It won an award and brought some international attention. But it wasn't enough.
Before it closed in 2011, the museum's budget was $341,000. This money paid for staff, programs, heating, and lights. In July 2011, Milford's town leaders approved giving $26,000. This was part of a $100,000 fundraising effort.
But on August 25, 2011, the museum's board voted to close it right away. In 2013, a state senator tried to pass a law to reopen the museum. This effort did not succeed. In 2014, the state government approved a plan to give up to $100,000 to the Connecticut Resource Recovery Authority. This money was meant to support similar environmental education efforts, but the Garbage Museum itself remained closed.
