Residential Trash Cans of the 50's & 60's

Does anyone recall your trash cans having the letters G & R painted on them.
The G stood for Garbage and the R stood for Rubbish.
That garbage was picked up a every week, and rubbish every other week.
That Rubbish was considered to be all metals and glass; and Garbage was consider all other materials.
That garbage went to the city incinerators, and rubbish went to be reused [recycle these days].
On rubbish days, anything you had that was metal or glass could be placed out for them to collect.
And how about those heavy wire burning baskets we had in the alley to do away with paper materials.

We had a garbage can like the cans shown and a trash [[rubbish) can that was an open-topped 55-gallon drum. My father had a top out of 1x4s for that can. The paper you had to burn once a week in a wire container in the middle of the alley. There was an old black gentleman with a one-horse cart that used to go up and down the alleys the day before trash/rubbish pickup and try to salvage anything salable at the junk yard. He never made a mess and so nobody minded it. We kids thought the horse drawn cart was pretty neat.

I am still amazed at how many Detroit [[and older suburban) houses I walk into that have an incinerator, or at least signs of one, in the basement.

We referred to him as the [[sheenie???) man.
Dont as me if that is the correct spelling but thats what we called him in Poletown.

Interesting Slick! I found that sheenie or sheeny was an offensive term for a jew. In my city like a lot of cities in North America with big jewish populations, jews were plying their ragpicking or scrapmetal trades in the streets and alleyways with a horse and buggy. Kirk Douglas's father was a ragpicker, according to his autobio.

As I recall, the "G" for garbage was collected as food waste and had to be rolled up in newspaper. The “Garbage Man” would then walk up the driveway with asmall hand cart to tote the garbage to the truck at the curb. More often then not, the few bundles would simply be picked out of the canand carried to the truck, to facilitate efficiency with the empty can. My recollection of him is a black man in blue mattress-tickingcoveralls with long rubber apron and rubber gloves. The garbage was taken to area pig farms where it was used as food “slop” for the animals. A smelly endeavor to be sure, but practical indeed.

I do remember this -vaguely. I would have been about 5 or 6 years old at the time. But I think my grandfather called everything "rubbish" or at the very least used the terms interchangeably. I don't remember being aware that there were different collection days for garbage vs rubbish. What I do remember is that in the autumn my grandfather would burn a lot of the burnable paper rubbish items in our back yard along with the fall leaves.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hamtragedy

I am still amazed at how many Detroit [[and older suburban) houses I walk into that have an incinerator, or at least signs of one, in the basement.

---

My parents' house [[on Whitehill between Britain and Grayton) had an incinerator. But I don't think we used it much if at all.

Way back then I lived in the area of 7 mile and Outer Drive East side [[LaSalle College Park). The city eliminated all alleys.
On garbage day there would always be two men who retrieved your garbage cans from the rear of your garge, take them to the street, dump them in their truck and return the cans to the back of you garage.
I grew up in the area of Davison and McDougal and well remember the horse and wagon going up and down the alleys.

Growing up in Detroit was wonderful in those years.

Jim B

In the '40s, every street had an alley, and that was where the garbage can and the paper-burning oil drum was located. Yup, everyone had a 55-gallon oil drum that they burned paper and cardboard in. The garbage went in the garbage can. There was no plastic back then, so not a problem, and it seems like tin cans also went into the oil drum and got burned.

All bottles back then had deposits on them....2c for pop and beer, as I recall, so they just got recycled. I can't recall what happened to a glass jar of, um, well, pickles, for example. They just evaporated, I guess.

Sometimes the fire in the oil drum got set too close to the detached garage [[which every house seemed to have) with unhappy results.

Devil's night was running down the alley and tipping over those oil drums. Fairly tame by recent standards.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by canuck

Interesting Slick! I found that sheenie or sheeny was an offensive term for a jew. In my city like a lot of cities in North America with big jewish populations, jews were plying their ragpicking or scrapmetal trades in the streets and alleyways with a horse and buggy. Kirk Douglas's father was a ragpicker, according to his autobio.

---

My grandfather,father,brother and uncle were all "sheeny" men.I too for a while.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by luckycar

My grandfather,father,brother and uncle were all "sheeny" men.I too for a while.

---

Some folks have really hit big time from humble beginnings. Herbert Black's father started American Iron and Metal scrapyard in Montreal in 1936, and he is now a billionaire. He has one of the most important private collections of Impressionist paintings anywhere.

Burning the trash in the alley in that big wire basket with my father in the late 50’s andearly 60’s was always something I looked forward to. You could poke the trash through the wires with a stick and make embers fly high into the air. It’s a miracle that the garage never burned down. The “sheeny man” would blow his horn when he came by so you could bring your stuff out to him. When his horse took a dump,my mother would have us bring some back home to put in the garden. Happy simple time gone forever.
Attachment 12904

Ray 1936
I stole those pickle jars [[sometimes Miracle Whip), poked holes in the top and caught bumble bees with them. ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mikefmich

Ray 1936
I stole those pickle jars [[sometimes Miracle Whip), poked holes in the top and caught bumble bees with them. ;)

---

You just sparked some memories for me ray, we use to use 2 liters, some times we would even catch flys,

We got an incinerator when I worked for an affiliate of Michigan Consolidated Gas company and I got a great employee discount. This was some time in the mid 70's. We were still using it when we sold the house in '89. One day my mom called me at work and said "Don't be alarmed if a neighbor calls and tells u the fire department is here....I accidently put an aerosol can in the incinerator and it exploded and the house is full of smoke...they are checking for fire, but don't believe there is one." Incinerator still worked fine after that.