Jurtrashic Park’ teaches children about recycling

A one-ton dinosaur made out of trash, five-foot earthworms that make their homes in a 16-foot compost pile and a game-show style cage where visitors will be covered in “clean garbage” are among the star attractions at the Children’s Garbage Museum and Education Center of South, west Connecticut in Stratford.

The just-completed, 5,000-square-foot center features a learning laboratory, amphitheater, 125-foot skywalk above the adjacent recycling plant and 15 interactive, hands-on exhibits to help teach youngsters how to reduce, reuse, recycle and rethink throw,away lifestyles.

The focal point of the exhibit is a 24-foot-long, one-ton “Trash-osaurus,” a brontosaurus made entirely from old irons, used toys, car scraps, spent sporting equipment and other pieces of trash. Sculptor Leo Sewell, Beitel Displays, Philadelphia, supervised a team of artists who scrounged the streets of the city, collected non, recyclable items sent to Southwest Connecticut Regional Recycling Operating Committee’s (SWEROC) recycling plant and used donations of trash from Connecticut schoolchildren to create the largest sculpture of his career.

The “Worm Tunnel,” a 16,foot,by-10-foot compost pile, allows children to wend their way through a simulated pile of decomposing organic waste with monster,sized earthworms, centipedes and other “creepy crawlers” to learn about nature’s recycling: composting.

The “Trash Bash” is an interactive game in which students don hard-hats and goggles and climb into special cages where they will be covered with garbage if they incorrectly answer questions on solid waste issues.

Other exhibit highlights include:

* No Place is Away,” which is a pinball style game designed to bring to life the consequences of disposing of products like oven cleaners, oil-based paint or insecticides down the kitchen sink, in the backyard or in the storm drain;

* Miniature earth-moving equipment that dumps “garbage balls” at a trash-to-energy plant and lights a model city, dispells the common misconception that garbage in the state is landfilled and explores the positive principles of converting garbage into electricity. A model of the local trash, to-energy plant lights up when enough trash” is dumped into the hopper; and

* “The General Store,” a packaging exhibit with a replica of an 1830s country store counter.

The museum’s educational goal is empowerment: children should leave the center with the understanding that they have choices and the knowledge that they can make a difference in the nation’s solid waste crisis. Operated by SWEROC–a consortium of 19 towns and cities in Southwest Connecticut–the center is designed as a field trip experience for schoolchildren.

Special “Family Saturdays” that are open to the public are held on a regular basis. The 5,000-square-foot Education Center is adjacent to the region’s 40,000-square-foot regional recycling processing facility in Stratford.

“It has been an exciting challenge to bring together all the necessary elements for a successful learning environment, says Valerie Knight-DiGangi, the center’s director. “Working with nationally recognized exhibit designers and fabricators, we’ve created exhibits that encourage children to explore serious environmental issues, and to do so in a fun way to have lasting impact and empower them to take responsibility for the environment.”

The exhibits were designed by Raymond Mendez of Work At Play, New York. Beitel Displays, Philadelphia, in collaboration with Nicholas Boonin Inc., West Collingswood, N.J., fabricated the exhibits.

Funding for the museum was achieved through corporate donations, financial support from some of the municipal members of the regional recycling consortium and recycling tip fees generated by the 19 member municipalities.

For more information on the museum project, contact the Children’s Garbage Museum and Education Center, (800) 455-9571.