Partners in Science

Connecticut Resource Recovery Authority (CRRA)

CRRA has two award-winning museums, the CRRA Visitors Center & Trash Museum in Hartford and The Children's Garbage Museum in Stratford. Each museum offers unique exhibits and programs on the many challenges and solutions of waste management, and each museum has a viewing area where visitors can observe the working regional recycling center. Approximately 50,000 people of all ages enjoy visiting the museums each year. Educator-led group tours are available through pre-registration. Loan Kits, books, and videos are also available to borrow. In order to close the recycling loop, CRRA operates a gift shop at both museums featuring items made with recycled or reused content. Admission is free and there is handicapped access.

Visitors at CRRA Visitors Center & Trash Museum, located in Hartford, may tour the 6,500 square feet of educational exhibits beginning at the Temple of Trash. Here they learn about the problems of old-fashioned methods of disposal, such as the “town dump”. From problems, the tour moves to solutions, including explanations of source reduction, recycling, resource recovery and landfills. During the tour, there is an opportunity to watch the Container Processing Facility in operation. From the mezzanine viewing area, visitors can follow bottles, cans, and plastic containers from the tipping floor, through the automated sorting equipment, on to the end of the processing line where items are crushed or baled. Prepared recyclables are then shipped to markets and made into new products.

The Children’s Garbage Museum in Stratford offers visitors an opportunity to view Trash-o-saurus, a dinosaur made from a ton of trash, which is how much trash an average person throws away in a year! Guests may walk through a giant compost pile, meet resident compost worms and discover how much energy savings is derived from recycling. They see what happens to recyclables in a “sky-box” view of the tipping and sorting process. From the mezzanine walkway, visitors can follow glass and plastic containers, cans and newspapers through the sorting process and on to the end of the line where items are crushed and baled for shipping to processors, who turn them into products.

Educator-led group tours are available at the two museums. Each tour includes:

• A guided and interactive exploration of the museum exhibits on all aspects of waste management
• An opportunity to view the working recycling center
• A hands-on, topic-specific activity of your choice
• There is a wide range of subject matter and activity choices for group program. Programs are age-appropriate and can often be adapted to meet various participants' goals and needs.  Additionally, the program options may align with school curricula and state science frameworks.
• The activity choices for the programs are organized as follows:
• Primary (Grades Pre-K-3)
• Intermediate (Grades 4-8)
• Advanced (Grades 9-Adult)
• For information on group size, available times, length of each tour, cost (no cost!), and booking procedures, go to http://www.crra.org/pages/edu_reserv_tours.htm

Teacher Preparation
Each museum has a collection of Loan Kits, books, and videos on various aspects of waste management. Each Loan Kit includes things like activities, lesson plans, books, videos, background information, artifacts, games and other materials. The items are in a trunk, awaiting teacher or user imagination to put them to use.
Educators from the CRRA Visitors Center & Trash Museum and The Children's Garbage Museum are available for off-site presentations, as time permits. Call the CRRA Visitors Center & Trash Museum at (860) 757-7765 or The Children's Garbage Museum at (203) 381-9571 to discuss the possibility of an entertaining and age-appropriate off-site presentation.

PUBLIC HOURS
September through June
Wednesday to Friday from noon to 4 p.m.
July through August
Wednesday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
(Scheduled group tours are available Tuesday through Friday, starting at 9 am and ending at 3:45 p.m.)

ADDRESS
CRRA Visitors Center & Trash Museum
211 Murphy Road
Hartford, CT 06114

TELEPHONE/FAX NUMBERS
Telephone: (860) 757-7765
Fax: (860) 278-8471

http://www.crra.org/pages/education.htm

To view aligned field trips at CRRA, visit our
Science Framework Resources Database