Tuesday, September 25, 2007

New attraction at the Trash Museum

There’s a new attraction at the Trash Museum in Hartford that gives visitors an up-close look at CRRA’s state-of-the-art recycling processing center.

Nine closed-circuit television cameras feed video of various stages of the recycling processes to large monitors installed in the viewing area overlooking the processing center.

The new closed-circuit system was installed after the installation of new recycling equipment in the processing facility. Previously, visitors could clearly see the processes from the viewing area, but the new processing equipment doesn’t allow the same sight lines.

On a split-screen monitor, viewers can see the action of the recycling processing from each of the nine cameras. Conveyor belts, plastic optic sorting, paper screeners and bales of each commodity are examples of the new sorting technology. Additionally, there is on-going truck traffic where recyclables are dumped onto the tipping floor and then pushed onto a conveyor belt by a payloader.

The new camera exhibit offers a variety of features that enhance the educational experience of the groups. Educators leading tours can toggle through the images and zoom camera views in and out as on-lookers learn about the sorting process. A larger image may be projected onto the adjacent wall so that the process may be further explained. Placed over the mock bales in the museum are monitors displaying the sorting process of that particular commodity.

The Trash Museum is located at 211 Murphy Road in Hartford’s South Meadows. For contact information, directions and hours of operation, click on this link:
http://www.crra.org/pages/edu_contact_htfd.htm

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Welcome!

At the Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority, we do everything we can to communicate with the people of Connecticut, and we have always encouraged people to communicate with us. Our Board of Directors meetings are open to the public and the first item of business is almost always public comment. We hold public meetings and presentations throughout the state and welcome questions from those in attendance.

But we know you can't always get to those meetings, and you may not be able to get through when we're on a radio or television talk show, so we're introducing CRRABlog (crab on top of a log -- get it?) as another means of stimulating dialogue between CRRA and the people we serve.

Here's how it's going to work: we'll tell you what we're thinking, then you tell us what you're thinking. We will moderate comments, but only to make sure nothing inappropriate or offensive is posted.