The Story of Trash Can

When Did the Garbage Bin First Appear in Modern History?
In England, in 1875 the first garbage receptacle was introduced. This container was used for the ashes of burnt garbage. On a weekly basis this receptacle was emptied, and each resident was charged a fee regardless if their bin was empty or full. It took ten years for the United States to catch up to England. New York City developed a waste management system in 1914, which collected incinerated garbage by horse-drawn carts. There were some mistakes made until incinerators became operational throughout the United States and Canada.
Soon instead of each household having to burn their own garbage, horse-drawn carts would pick up the garbage and transport it to several hundred incinerators nationwide. When motor cars came on the scene, the horse drawn carts were replaced with motorized machines.
In Paris, France, the establishment of the “Poubelle Law”, in 1883, called for the use of closed disposal waste containers. Daily disposal of waste became the law. Eugene Poubelle, a Paris government official, signed into law the ordinance that any property owner must provide each of his tenants with three vessels with covers to collect garbage. Poubelle might well have been the first recycler in history to require citizens to separate garbage by types. The first container was for green waste (stuff that would rot). The second container was
for paper and cloth and third receptacle was for pottery, glass, and oyster shells.


First Plastic Garbage Can
The garbage cans in the 1950’s were made from metal. After a short time, these cans tended to get rusty and were noisy too as they were dragged from the curbs to the house. Charles Harrison, who died in 2018, is called the father of the plastic garbage can. Harrison was an African- American industrial product designer who worked for Sears. He was more famous for the invention of the View-Master for children in which you look through and see pictures in 3-D. Harrison downplayed this invention and considered his invention of the plastic garbage can as much more significant. He set out to make a more durable, easier to drag plastic garbage can on wheels and succeeded beyond all expectations. Harrison is noted to have had dyslexia, therefore he tried to make his products instinctive and spontaneous so that people would not have to struggle with directions. Sears was reluctant to hire Harrison; until he proved himself with several different inventions including the see-through measuring cup, the riding lawn mower, the Dial-O-Matic food slicer and the cordless shaver.
Sears was determined to test Harrison's breakthrough plastic garbage can. They were doubtful that it could take the place of the classic metal can. Product testers at Sears filled the new plastic garbage cans with water and then dropped them from airplanes to prove their strength and their smash resistance. With the testing successful, the plastic garbage can was the newest product in the Sears assembly line.
Metal garbage cans are still popular with some people, while different types of plastic cans are extremely common with companies coming up with unique designs. Disney World has the most unique designs and these cans have become tourist attractions along with the main showplaces in this unique theme park.
Cultures have changed the meaning of the word garbage. What was once a valuable commodity is now put in the trash too easily. Even using a paper or plastic item twice instead of once would reduce the amount of trash in a household. Let us try to use our garbage cans more efficiently and think a bit before tossing out an item.