Forgotten Bathroom Relic

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.