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Topic: Garbage

James Westbrook
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1133
From: Lubbock, Texas, Usa
Registered: Mar 2006

posted 12-26-2019 02:03 PM

I am about to probably go into a meandering story here. I will try to keep it concise.
Sometimes memories can be triggered by smell. This happened to me one night when I was running a Gold Medal popper behind the concession stand. The smell of the smoke coming from the kettle hits my nose and suddenly I recall...
My family lived in the community of Shallowater, Texas which is just a short drive Northwest of Lubbock on highway 84. We lived there through the winter of 1966/1967. A major line of the Santa Fe railroad went through there and back then they still had passenger service as I recall seeing the small lit windows on the passenger cars as the train went by.
Anyway, Shallowater had these trash cans in the alley which enabled one to burn their trash in them. My mother usually did this, and one day I assisted her by holding the box of matches while she got the fire going. When she wasn't looking I dropped the box of matches into the fire. Odd that I didn't get spanked for that...
Anyway, since I have been alive and cognizant Lubbock did not burn their trash. I am guessing Shallowater was still "old school" at that time. The elementary school I went to in Lubbock had an incinerator on the property which was not used when I attended.
TL;DR version : People in West Texas used to burn their trash.
Gold Medal is not going to be happy about my having that flash back while operating their popper.

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Frank Cox
Film God

Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011

posted 12-26-2019 02:24 PM

When I was a kid almost everyone had a "burning barrel" in their back yard. You just dumped your burnable trash into it and lit it up once in a while, then dumped the ashes into a bag when they were cold for the garbage truck to pick up.

It was kind of messy and smelly but that's how everyone did it. I don't think anyone would have dreamed of putting unburned papers or cardboard out for pick up without having burned it first.

Everyone used to burn their leaves too. That was the smell of fall every year -- burning leaves.

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Kenneth Wuepper
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1026
From: Saginaw, MI, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 12-26-2019 06:03 PM

There were also machines that compacted the trash into a cubical paper bag. The bag was then placed out for pickup on a weekly basis.

The burning was also mechanized in the form of incinerators. Trash was placed in the hopper and when it was dry enough to burn, it was automatically ignited. The machine was vented to the house chimney. Because there was forced combustion air, the extreme heat made short work of some food waste as well.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 12-26-2019 09:20 PM

Everyone should watch the episode of Penn and Teller: BULLSHIT about recycling. It's an eye opener and pretty much proves what Steve says, which is that a lot of what we think of as "recycling" is pretty much a PR move that doesn't really accomplish much. It just costs so much to be effective and most people don't understand it well enough.

Around here we just have one trash can for everything. When I travel, I often don't know what to do with trash. If I have a styrofoam cup, does it go in plastic, or trash? If I have a paper tray with leftover food in it, does the food have to go in the trash or can I put the whole shebang in the paper receptacle? What about a package that is part paper and part plastic, which container does that go in? How about a box that has some foam cushioning on the inside... do I separate the cushioning and put it in the plastic receptacle, or does the whole thing go into the trash can? What about a cardboard box that has metal reinforcements on the corners? Does the metal contaminate it?

I just looked at my property tax bill, which is how we pay for garbage pickup. For the theatre, it's $675 for last year, or $1.85 a day. For that we get two trash pickups a week, and we can haul as much stuff as necessary to the local landfill station. They'll also take things like appliances, tires, just about anything except vehicles. I think that's a bargain.

It boggles my mind when I see how much crap our little town generates and multiply that by the billions of people in the world.

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Gordon McLeod
Film God

Posts: 9532
From: Toronto Ontario Canada
Registered: Jun 99

posted 12-27-2019 12:25 PM

We have had in Toronto a recycle program for a very long time
Originally it was just to seperate paper products Now the recycle (blue bin wheely) is glass paper plastic (except black) metal
There is a green bin that is for organics and a black bin for garbage
Pick up is every week for organics alternating weeks for gargage and blue bins

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