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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
A hundred years ago, there was very little trash. Few news papers, no cardboard boxes or plastic wrappings. Anything that would burn went into the kitchen stove or the fireplace. Any undesirable food was fed to pigs. There was no trash collection, no garbage collection. When garbage collection began it was done by independents who had pig farms. Broken pieces of wood were called "kindling" because they were used to start fires for cooking or heating. When homes began to be heated by coal and oil, trash collection began. But trash had to be kept out of the garbage, as it could kill pigs. But garbage fed pigs could be fed pork scraps,acquire and transmit trichinosis, so garbage had to be cooked. Now grain fed pork is cheap enough, nobody wants garbage fed pig meat. So garbage and burnable trash get mixed, and the names used interchangeably. But most cities want recyclable materials collected separately. So here in LA we have black barrels for vurnable trash and garbage, blue barrels for recyclable things, and green barrels for grass clippings and other plant debris.
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Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 688
addict
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addict
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 688 |
Recycling is in here. My recycle bin that is carried out each week is much larger than the garbage bag we set out to the curb each week. All paper, junk mail (lots of that), cardboard, waxy milk cartons, plastic, glass and metal are recycleable and go out in a special container. We do a small amount of composting here with yard waste (grass and twigs mostly). But very little is true garbage: kitchen scraps, styrofoam meat trays, and tissue (kleenex). We do what we can to help the environment.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Thanks for the site, Jo. "Wheelie bin"--how much more efficient (and whimsical, to my US'n ears) than "garbage can with wheels", which is what we call ours. But ours don't fit INTO lorries--I mean trucks! The garbage men just pick the tied plastic bags of garbage (and trash) out of them, and dump any loose pieces of trash into the back of their big smelly truck, where it gets all mashed. We do, however, have recycling bins. We recycle everything Angel's community does, I think, and have a special day designated for yard waste pick-up.
Dr. Bill, my memories of being on the farm in the 50's and 60's tell me the same practices you described were still in effect. The pigs got the slop, as it was called. I'm fairly sure I remember it being called a slop bucket, whereas the cows were milked into a pail--no significant difference in the design of the two containers--they were just called different things.
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
trash/garbage
When something is ready to be thrown away a typical phrase around here is trash it!, go ahead and trash it, or just trash it. And this applies to anything to be disposed of, no matter where it's heading, trash can, garbage can, or the compost heap.
Then there's the phrase we really trashed them or what a trashing after beating someone handily at sports.
And, of course, there's also the inebriated trashed...I'm really trashed.
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Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636 |
Here we call our wheeled trashcans "Herbie Kerbies"(don't ask, I have NO idea  ) and our trucks are equipped to attach to the can to dump it in, then they are released and sorta put back where they were. I know. I have to be at work too darn early to know all these details. 
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409 |
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
Your description, Bill, of the way waste was disposed of a hundred years ago applies pretty much to 50 or 60 years ago. Except that you forgot the ashes. When I was a boy, in the 1940s, we had a coal furnace, as did most people. The ashes had to be shovelled out daily, into a metal container larger than a bucket. Yours truly got this job and once a week had to haul it up the cellar steps to the back yard where it would be emptied into an open truck by the ash men, who collected nothing else. Then there was the garbage truck, which collected the garbage (mostly organic, as you noted), also by dumping it into an open truck, which was really unpleasant in the summer. I can't for the life of me recall what happened to the trash such as paper, glass, tin cans, etc. which didn't go into the garbage. There must have been yet a third truck which collected that.
During the war, of course, unused cooking grease was collected in tin cans and taken to the neighborhood grocery store, where it was collected for the war effort. Same for the cans. When you opened a can, you saved the top; when the can was emptied, you cut out the bottom and flattened the can (with the top & bottom inside) and took that to the grocery as well, to be collected and melted down.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
>But ours don't fit INTO lorries--I mean trucks! Nearly right Jackie - not into (there wouldn't be room for many!) but onto - there is a special clippy thing that clips them on, so they can be tipped up into the lorry as described by others above. Some areas have different coloured ones for recycling but Edinburgh, for some reason known only to the good burghers is in the dark ages in that respect. PS Funny that the Cambridge Dictionary chose Edinburgh for it's example http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=burgher*1+0 - are they trying to tell us something?
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
>Then there's the phrase we really trashed them or what a trashing after beating someone handily at sports. And, of course, there's also the inebriated trashed...I'm really trashed. I think that we would use some of these phrases too. "The kids trashed the room". People seem to speak garbage but are trash (trailer trash for example). We don't really have trailer parks to the same degree (too cold and wet probably), only caravan sites for (mainly) summer use, although there are "Park Homes" which seem to be http://www.cso-parkhomes.co.uk/ sold largely to people who are retiring.
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