On August 25, 2011, the CRRA Board of Directors voted to close the Garbage Museum in Stratford immediately. Thank you for your 16 years of support for the Garbage Museum and its educational programs.

The CRRA Trash Museum, located in Hartford, continues to operate. Click here for contact information.

The Facts about the Future of the CRRA Garbage Museum

The CRRA Garbage Museum, 1410 Honeyspot Road Extension, Stratford, opened in 1995 in response to the hundreds of groups that requested tours of the adjacent recycling processing center. (We were “green” before “green” was cool.)

The Garbage Museum provides recycling, energy conservation and environmental education to children and adults through Museum tours, in-school programs and exhibits at public events such as the Eastern States Exposition. Museum tours include a skybox view of the recycling center in action, allowing visitors to watch cans, bottles, paper and cardboard be delivered, sorted and baled for shipping to companies that make them into new products.

The 2010 Business New Haven Book of Lists ranked the Garbage Museum 12th in participation among the region’s tourist and cultural attractions. In all, over 320,000 people have come to the Garbage Museum to learn about those concepts we know today as “sustainability.” In 2002, the Garbage Museum was awarded the prestigious Beth Brown Boettner Award for Outstanding Public Education by the National Recycling Coalition.

Until June 2009 the Garbage Museum and its educational programs were funded by revenues from the sale of recyclables delivered from a collective of cities and towns to the adjacent recycling processing center. Its budget for the current fiscal year is $264,000.

But long-term contracts to sell the Stratford facility’s recyclables ended in 2009, not long after the global recession caused commodity prices to crater. At the same time, six towns left the collective, so the reduced tonnages sold at lower prices no longer generate enough money to cover any of the Garbage Museum’s costs.

Seeing that changes were coming, in 2008 we began charging modest fees for visits, tours and outreach programs to help smooth the transition to a new business model. However, the economy changed more swiftly and drastically than anyone anticipated, forcing us to almost immediately become completely self-sustaining.

We are seeking grants and corporate sponsorships, as well as individual contributions of any amount, to make sure these vital programs continue. Also available are new Garbage Museum-branded caps, t-shirts, mugs, reusable shopping bags and other items, as well as customizable tiles that are being displayed permanently in the Garbage Museum.

We have requested and received from the IRS a ruling that contributions to the Garbage Museum are tax-deductible. Contributions can be sent to:
CRRA Garbage Museum
1410 Honeyspot Road Extension
Stratford, CT, 06615

Contributions can also be made on-line -- just click here!

Facebook users can like the Garbage Museum by visiting the Garbage Museum Facebook page.

And check out this blog called "Save the Stratford, CT Garbage Museum."

Families in Orange, Conn., held a neighborhood yard sale to benefit the Garbage Museum!

A group of East Haven High School students made this short documentary called "Trash-o-saurus in Trouble." It was selected best documentary at the 2010 Connecticut Student Film Festival.

A six-year-old Wilton boy donated his birthday money to the Garbage Museum.