garbage museums

Thanks to my dad for sending me a link to the Boston Globe about the very cool Children's Garbage Museum in Stratford, Connecticut. The museum is attached to a recycling processing center and is funded by the sales of the recyclables.

The exhibits convey the importance of recycling and apparently it is also just really cool to watch the recycling processes happen. I know I'd love to see the part where aluminum and plastics are separated:

"A magnet pulls out all the steel containers, then the aluminum is popped out with an eddy current, a spinning electrical charge that makes nonferrous metals just pop off the belt. The cans just go flying, and we catch them in a collection bin. Everything that's left is plastic."

The museum is run by the Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority. They also have another museum in Hartford which also gives an overview of the regional recycling center.

What a great idea! I wonder if there are more of these in other parts of the country?