Many thanks to our chaperones;
Em's mom, Amanda's mom, Matt's mom and Sophie's mom!
We're off to the Garbage Museum!
Welcome to The Garbage Museum in Stratford, Connecticut! It was only about a twenty minute bus ride from North Stratfield Elementary School. We were very excited when we got there...
When we first arrived, we met our fantastic tour guide, Audrey. We all sat under "Trash-o-saurus." Our tour guide told us that Trash-o-saurus was made by an artist in Pennsylvania. Trash-o-saurus weighs 2000 pounds; that is the same as the amount of garbage the average person throws away in one year. We all have to be more careful!
We learned all about making a compost pile to dispose of some of our garbage without polluting our Earth. Look at all the bugs on top of this giant compost pile! We actually got to walk through it- what fun!
Our guide showed us real compost with live, Red Wiggler, squirmy worms in it! It was made with coffee grinds, coffee filters, and lettuce. We even got to get up close and smell it! Can you believe those worms made all that dirt?
After learning about compost, we went into a classroom where we each colored our own non-fiction book about recycling. Then we went right upstairs with our wonderful guide, Audrey. She taught us all about how to figure out what things go in your recycling bin, and what doesn't! Afterwards, it was off to the hallway of windows that overlook the real, working recycling plant!
The best part of our trip was when we got to see the people hard at work in the recycling center. We were amazed at all the bottles, cans, newspaper and plastic that had to be separated and sorted. These people were very busy! We were surprised to find out that some of the recyclables we were looking at were right from our own homes!
Look at this giant bale of plastic bottles! Can you imagine how many bottles are in there? We were surprised to find out how many things you can make from recylced plastic bottles; like park benches, fleece sweatshirts, and even the carpeting in the Garbage Museum! We were walking on recycled plastic bottles!
In the front of this picture is a pile of newspapers that just came into the center. It still needs to be sorted. Behind it you can see sorted and bundled newspapers that are ready to be made into something new. Our guide told us that one of those bales of newspapers is equal to 17 average-size trees! Just imagine... those people who recycled their newspapers, instead of throwing them away, saved 17 trees- WOW!
While at the museum, we realized you can make lots of fabulous things from recyclables. For example, look at these two pieces of artwork that were hanging at the museum. The one on the left is made out of milk cartons, and the one on the right is made from styrofoam meat trays. Beautiful and Earth-friendly!
This display to the right is made up of 188 juice boxes. If each one of us were to bring a juice box to school every day for the whole school year, this is how many empty cartons we would throw away. Times that by the number of children in our school and that is a huge amount of juice boxes in our landfills! Can you think of a way you can help solve this problem?
We were tired, happy, and a lot wiser at the end of our trip to The Garbage Museum. We highly recommend a family visit to this fantastic place!
Special thanks to our amazingly talented tour guide, Audrey! Please visit the Garbage Museum's Website to learn more! Be sure to find out when their "Family Fun Days" are scheduled!
Dear 1H,

Do you want to have some fun? Ask mom or dad if they will sit with you while you visit the EPA's Kids Club web site, or Connecticut's Earth 911 for Kids, to learn more about recycling. There are lots of fun things for you to do there. Please be sure to read the 1H Online Safety Rules before leaving this site.

Now that you are a recycling expert, have you helped your family make any changes at home to be better recyclers? Please email Mrs. Healey and tell me about it!

XOXO,
Mrs. Healey
©2000-2008 Paula Healey
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