Chinese Middle Schoolers Flood Garbage Museum

Before heading north on I-95 to visit Yale University last week, about 120 Chinese middle school students unexpectedly dropped by Stratford's Garbage Museum.

"They all just showed up at the door," said museum educator Audrey Sciuto. She said there were four groups with about 30 students each that visited the museum on four consecutive days last week.

"They were really interested in recycling," said Sciuto. "They couldn't believe that soda bottles could be made into carpet."

The sudden but welcomed guests from China were on their way to Yale University in New Haven, before heading further east to Cambridge, Mass., where they planned to tour Harvard University and MIT, said Sciuto.

Sciuto said the Chinese children also enjoyed watching the trucks bring in the recyclables. She said there are a lot more plastics on the arranging floor now since towns implemented single-stream recycling, a system which Stratford adopted on July 1. Many items that used to be thrown away are now being recycled, such as yogurt cups, said Sciuto.

And it seems that -- at least for now -- the more the facility recycles, the more people visit the Garbage Museum.

Education supervisor Sotoria Montanari said July was the busiest July in the 16-year-old museum's history. She said 2,391 people visited the Garbage Museum last month, compared to 1,468 in July 2010.

Montanari attributed the jump in public visitors, in part, to the news that the museum might have to close down soon if it doesn't find $75,000 to $100,000 in funding to pay for operational costs this fiscal year, which began on July 1.

This was an order given by the board of directors for the Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority, which runs and operates the children's museum, after more than $60,000 had already been raised in donations from municipalities, said Montanari.

The board of directors will meet on Aug. 25 to discuss the matter of potentially shuttering the Garbage Museum.

Editor's note: check back tomorrow for a more in-depth article on the fundraising effort.