CRRA Trash Museum Unveils New Logo

Pita Group’s Design, as Does the Museum it Represents, Makes Discards Become Valuable

HARTFORD, Conn. – The museum in Hartford’s South Meadows that since 1993 has helped more than 200,000 children and adults learn about recycling, conserving energy and protecting the environment has a fresh new logo.

Click on the image to download a 300-dpi .jpg version of the new CRRA Trash Museum logo.

Visitors to the 6,500-square foot Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority Trash Museum, which adjoins CRRA’s single-stream recycling center at 211 Murphy Road, will soon be greeted with signage that incorporates the whimsical logo, a unique colorful morphing of letters and images. The logo includes a reminder to reduce, reuse, recycle, recover and rethink and leads people to CRRA’s website, where they can find details about these and many other important topics.

“To match the thought-provoking exhibits within the Trash Museum, we wanted to give its new logo a distinct identity, look and feel that would appeal to the children and young adults who visit us with their teachers and families,” said Sotoria Montanari, CRRA’s educational supervisor who oversees programs at the Trash Museum in Hartford and at the CRRA Garbage Museum in Stratford.

Designed by Rocky Hill-based Pita Group, the kid-tested logo juxtaposes images of a trash can and toilet paper roll with graffiti, traditional and reverse typographical treatments. “The new logo is an extension of our museums – it elevates trash to art and helps us see found objects not as things to be discarded but rather as unique items of value,” Montanari said.

The Trash Museum’s interactive exhibits and award-winning educational programs help students of all ages discover that they hold the key to protecting their environment just by thinking before throwing something in the trash. Beginning in the Temple of Trash, they learn about the problems of the old-fashioned “town dump,” then learn about solutions, including explanations of source reduction, recycling, trash-to-energy and landfills.

During the tour, visitors can watch CRRA’s single-stream recycling facility in operation. From the mezzanine viewing area – and the museum’s closed-circuit television system – visitors can follow newspapers, cardboard, junk mail, bottles, cans and plastic containers as they are delivered, sorted and crushed or baled. Prepared recyclables are then shipped to markets and made into new products.

Back in the museum, a mural by Higganum artist Ted Esselstyn depicts the history of trash management from pre-historic times to today. Visitors can also see the amount of trash one person made in an entire year at Sustainable Dave's exhibit.

The Trash Museum is open to the public Wednesday through Friday from noon to 4 p.m. In July and August, the museum is also open Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. For more information, or to arrange a group tour (required for groups of more than five visitors), call the Trash Museum at 860-757-7765.

The Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority is a quasi-public agency whose mission is to work for – and in – the best interests of the municipalities of the state of Connecticut. CRRA’s new board of directors and new management team develop and implement environmentally sound solutions and best practices for solid waste disposal and recycling management on behalf of municipalities. CRRA serves more than 100 Connecticut cities and towns. CRRA also runs sustainability education programs through the Trash Museum in Hartford and Garbage Museum in Stratford. For more information about CRRA and its activities, visit http://www.crra.org. Computer users can also discuss CRRA at its blog, http://crra-blog.blogspot.com.

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