Foodshare goes green - learning about recycling

A guest blog entry today from Foodshare staffers Allison Wilkos and Vinh Vuong:

Last Thursday, the Administrative Professionals Team visited the Trash Museum in Hartford as part of the team’s recycling initiative. Located at the Connecticut Resource Recovery Authority in Hartford, the Trash Museum is really more of a recycling plant. We were able to see the recycling machinery live through a viewing room and through live-feed cameras. We also learned some details about what can and cannot be recycled. For example, plastic bags are not recycled at this particular facility because they get caught in the rotors and cause problems with the machinery.

We viewed several exhibits which included diagrams of the recycling process, art made out of trash (even real clothing!), and a suitcase that contained the entire amount of trash – only 28.5 pounds – that  avid environmentalist Dave Chameides produced in one year! The Trash Museum was a really good learning experience and the Administrative Professionals Team looks forward to sharing what we learned with Foodshare staff and others.

Here are some fun facts that that came from the museum.

·         Recycling one ton of paper saves:

Ø  17 trees

Ø  3 cubic yards of landfill space

Ø  4,100 kilowatt hours of electricity

Ø  7,000 gallons of water

Ø  460 gallons of oil

·         Every week more than 750,000 trees are used to produce newspaper printed in the USA

·         Americans produce enough paper in 11 weeks to build a 6ft. high wall to run from Hartford, CT to Disney World in Orlando, FL.