After seeing an old metal trash incinerator in a school restroom, I started to think about this topic. The incinerator looked heavy, clumsy, and menacing. The type of fixture that would make you pause for a moment to consider what people were doing at that time. When I began to research, I found that the incinerator was part of something much larger. In the past, trash incinerators were popular because people wanted their trash disposed of quickly and burning the trash was a quick fix for getting rid of it.

Burn It

Burning trash was an easy solution to dispose of garbage for a very long time. The pile of trash shrunk to a small pile of ashes. It appeared clean and efficient. Incinerators were installed in homes, apartment buildings, schools, and hospitals. Many people did not use an incinerator, instead they used a burn barrel in the yard.

This was normal. Smoke, stench, and ash were just a part of the daily lives of many.

At Home

Every home and household approached the fight against trash differently. Some burned their trash. Others buried their trash. Others hauled their trash to a local landfill. Some reused containers (jars, tins), rags, and cardboard until they fell apart. Animal food waste may have been fed to animals. Returned bottles could be redeemed. Scrap metal could be stored.

Each house or family approached managing trash with their own method.

In Schools

The old washroom incinerator fit this same mold. In schools and public buildings, some incinerators were used for handling sanitary waste. This represented the perspective of the time regarding hygiene. Hygiene meant eliminating waste completely. A container hid it, but fire destroyed it. At the time, this seemed a cleaner approach to people, especially where anything related to privacy or embarrassment was concerned.

Now this seems rather harsh. At the time, it was simply a practical solution.

More Trash

With the  things changed further. Disposable products, plastic packaging, disposable goods etc., became an integral part of our daily lives. Advertisers presented convenience as progress. Use it, discard it, move on.

However, people continued to utilize the same disposal methods. They burned more, they buried more. They threw away more. The type of trash changed, but the habits did not.

Blind Spots

While people had a good understanding of dirt, odor, and bacteria, they did not understand the dangers of smoke, chemicals, and long-term pollution as well. If trash was eliminated, the problem was perceived to be resolved. Therefore, it was not surprising that many of the disposal methods of the past appear extreme today. Burning mixed trash, dumping oil into the ground, and throwing hazardous waste into a fire were logical choices to many people at the time, when they did not realize the full extent of the risk.

That does not indicate that people did not care about the risks of waste management. It indicates that people did not fully comprehend the risks.

What It Shows continues on the next page.