A wildlife habitat on top of a landfill?

Seems the New York Times has just found out what we've known in Hartford for years -- that landfills can be significant bird habitats.

Today's story talks about bird-watchers enjoying a new park on top of the old Fresh Kills Landfill. For years, members of the Hartford Audubon Society have been visiting the Hartford landfill as part of its summer and Christmas bird counts.

The Hartford landfill, after 68 years of service, accepted its last deliveries of waste on December 31, 2008. Now we're eagerly awaiting the City of Hartford's plans for its use once its capping is completed in the next couple of years.

More plastics? Not just yet

You've probably heard by now that CRRA will soon be accepting all types of plastic at its Mid-Connecticut Project recycling facility.

However, contrary to what you may have read elsewhere, it's not happening just yet. The company manufacturing the equipment we need has informed us that we won't have the equipment until later this winter, so as of now we're hoping to begin accepting these additional materials in early spring. We'll keep you posted.

And also remember that this will only apply to residents of those 64 towns that send their recyclables to our Mid-Connecticut facility. Check this list; if your town is marked with an asterisk, or does not appear at all, your hauler or local public works department can tell you what you can and can't recycle.

NBC-Connecticut on single-stream recycling

NBC-Connecticut's Ryan Hanrahan just took a look at CRRA's single-stream recycling and, more importantly, its success.

On your radio

CRRA's Paul Nonnenmacher joined Mike Paine of Paine's Recycling & Rubbish Removal on Tuesday's "Colin McEnroe Show" on WNPR-FM.

You can listen to a podcast of the show . And here's Colin's blog posting about the program.

Congratulations, Diane!

A tip of the hat to our friend, Diane Vasseur, who has just become chairwoman of the Milford Environmental Concerns Coalition. Diane has been a big supporter of the sustainability education programs CRRA offers through the Garbage Museum and the Trash Museum.

Good luck, Diane!

A year's worth of trash on display

Back in January, "Sustainable Dave" Chameides donated a year's worth of his trash to the Trash Museum.

Before you get grossed out, what he donated was the result of his year-long experiment to see how strictly he could limit his waste output.

By doing things like using reusable containers and utensils, recycling and composting, he accumulated 28.5 pounds of trash. We've turned it into an exhibit which is now on display at the Trash Museum. In the meantime, here's more about Sustainable Dave from Good Morning America:

Good Morning America from Sustainable Dave on Vimeo.

With apologies to Robert Fulghum . . .

. . . all you really need to know about the bottle bill you can learn at the recycling plant. And what you'll learn is that people prefer the ease and convenience of curbside recycling rather than the bottle-bill system.

This is a picture of a bale of aluminum cans waiting to be shipped from CRRA's regional recycling facility in Hartford to a processor which will turn them into new products. Highlighted are cans which could have been returned for redemption but weren't. Why? Obviously, we couldn't track down each consumer, but it's not hard to surmise that people would rather place these and other deposit bottles and cans in their curbside bins than save them in their basement or garage or kitchen and make a special trip to the supermarket or redemption center to get their nickels back.

In this case, one picture really is worth a thousand words. Or, more to the point, a thousand nickels.