In 1952 when I was age six or so, I told my mother "I can lift 120 pounds!" She nicely said something to the effect of "show me". We were living in Los Angeles--I don't remember having the chore (yet) of taking out the trash.
 |
| General shape of the drum (wrong color though) |
Besides "Union Oil Co." it also had writing on it of "Net Weight 120 lbs.". Well, Mom broke it to me that that wasn't the weight of the now empty drum, but rather what the stuff inside it weighed when it was full of oil or whatever. My pride was hurt a bit but I got over it. What that drum was used for was trash. It was a trash container, and when it got full, my mother would go out back, toss in a match, and off it went!
Because back in the early '50s in Los Angeles, everyone just burned their trash in the backyard. Some used open oil drums--later on a criss-cross kind of grate was thrown over the top to help keep burning ashes from drifting down the block.
Next year we moved to a new house in El Monte. And my chores were upgraded to include "taking out the trash". A new house meant there was no oil drum. We had upgraded to an incinerator!
 | |||
| A typical incinerator from the '50s (from Daily Mirror collection) |
When called upon I dutifully took out the trash to the incinerator. It was located in a back corner of the yard, with a small fence on the side to kind of hide it. It had a metal door on the front you would pull down on, which opened to a chute, and you just poured in the trash. I don't remember about cans. Plastic wasn't much of a problem because it wasn't really used at this time to hold foods. Milk cartons were terrific--they were a waxed cardboard and made a great fire when lit.
So when the chute was full (inside there was a grate about a foot off the floor to allow an updraft), it was time to light it up. I'm betting that most seven year-old boys thought fire was cool! Toss in the match, close the metal door, and walk away. A few hours later, ashes were all that was left in the bottom. Periodically someone had to take out the ashes. Can't remember who did that.
 |
| L.A. Times October 20, 1954 |
But by 1958 trash collecting had begun. At this point I was still taking out the trash, but the collector now was a large green barrel (larger than the old drums), with small wheels welded to the bottom at one side, and a handle at the top of that side, made from a pipe that had been bent out on each end so you could grab it, tilt the barrel, and haul it to the curb.
It was a good idea to stop trash burning. I can remember in high school, there were many days during Phys. Ed. (we had an hour of P.E. every day back then!), it was so smoggy your lungs would hurt when you took a deep breath.
And last, a photo taken from Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, which shows the haze of a typical smoggy day in the mid '60s.
 |
| A view from Griffith Observatory -- 1967 |
