ONE MAN'S TRASH IS ANOTHER'S MUSEUM

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, April 5, 1993                   TAG: 9304030282
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LYNDHURST, N.J.                                LENGTH: Medium
ONE MAN'S TRASH IS ANOTHER'S MUSEUM
Those ubiquitous plastic foam products - thermal coffee cups, mailing "peanuts," and the like - won't have a home in 8-year-old Tommy Hansen's house anymore.
After an hour at the Trash Museum learning about the evils of not recycling and the amount of garbage Americans toss out, the little boy vowed to mend his ways - as well as his mother's.
"Mom, we can't buy anything that comes in styrofoam anymore," Tommy told his mother, Vanessa. "It's not biodegurdible."
Uh, that's "biodegradable," Tommy. But the lesson he learned is one many children, as well as adults, take away after visiting the museum at the Hackensack Meadowlands Environment Center: recycle and reduce the amount of trash you throw away or see your environment turn into one huge landfill.
The museum "is a tool which we use to help explain why solid waste is an issue and what we can do to help solve the problem," said Anne Galli, director of environmental operations for the Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission, the parent organization of the center and museum.
The Trash Museum is believed to have been the first of its kind in the country when it opened in 1989. It's geared toward children, Galli said, since they are the ones who will have to deal with the solid waste problem in the future.
Children such as Tommy seem to be getting the message.
"Recycling is good for Earth," he said. "Garbage just doesn't go away when the garbageman takes it."
Tommy, his 4-year-old brother Garrett and their mother started their tour of the Trash Museum by walking through a cross-section of a garbage dump.
The "garbage sculpture" stands about 10 feet tall, winds around a 20-foot curved wall, and is filled with garbage the creators found in their neighborhoods, Galli said. It includes a bathtub, a huge, stuffed pink teddy bear, tons of empty laundry detergent boxes and a bicycle wheel.
People often comment it looks like their teen-ager's bedroom or their garage, Galli said.
A tape tells visitors that Americans throw away so many rubber tires a day that if you stacked them on top of one another, they'd reach 10 times the height of Mount Everest - that's the world's highest mountain peak, 29,028 feet high.
Who throws away all this garbage, they ask? Both kids and adults are told to peek through holes in the wall to find out the answer - when they do, they see their own faces reflected back in a mirror.
What happens when you throw into a landfill things that could have been recycled, such as plastic bottles? Lift a flap in the wall and see the items still intact, even after years in the landfill.
"Recycled-But as Good as New" shows items made from recycled materials, and "Smart Shopper" tells you what to buy to reduce waste.
The museum's displays end on a positive note, Galli pointed out: artwork made from recycled materials - rugs woven out of plastic shopping bags, for example.
Vanessa Hansen said the museum had had a positive effect on her two boys. She'd brought them there as a reward for sitting through a dental exam.
"Now they probably won't let me throw anything away," she laughed.
Young Garrett seemed impressed as they left, just puzzled about one thing.
"Is a recycle like a tricycle?" he asked.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB