Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/849

 Abolishing the Garbage Can

��A gas -burning crematory is the latest sanitary device for disposing of refuse

���The refuse is scraped directly into the inciner- ator. There is a constant draft which carries all odors up the flue

��The residue is only a very small quantity of ster- ile ash. You light the inciner- ator just exactly as you would your gas oven

���PROBABLY a perfect method of col- lecting garbage fresh and hurrying it away in sanitary vehicles will never be found. Only by burning it on the spot will all danger and trouble from flies, odors and germs be averted.

A device which does this simply, thor- oughly and economically, has recently been invented by a New York man. It is in the form of a garbage crematory, which can be conveniently installed in either new or old buildings, residences, apartments, hospitals or hotels, at the place where the waste originates. It destroys by incineration all house, kitchen or sick-room waste, wet or dry, animal or vegetable, before it has a chance to become a menace to health.

The machine generates about 1,200 de- grees of heat, but is so constructed that the radiation is reduced to a minimum. It is lined with asbestos with an air space be- tween the outer and inner walls, to provide for constant circulation.

The cost of operation is very slight, five cents worth of gas being sufficient to destroy a bushel of garbage, which requires from three-quarters of an hour to one hour to burn, depending upon its nature. The residue is only a very small quantity of sterile ash, which may be dumped back in the hopper on top of the following day's accumulations, and burned over and over

��until you are ready to dump the ashes.

In large apartment houses the incinera- tor means a considerable saving in janitor service, to say nothing of the annoyance of having garbage cans to handle.

The heat in a kitchen from such a ma- chine is not any greater than that from the range, but the proper time to operate the incinerator is after all other work in the kitchen is finished, so that in the summer there need be no annoyance from its heat.

If the incinerator is installed in the kitchen or nearby where it can be connected with the flue from the kitchen range, all garbage cans and similar receptacles for refuse may be eliminated. The waste can be dumped im- mediately into the machine and allowed to collect there until there is opportunity to burn it. If one day's accumulation does not fill the machine, it may be left standing until three or four days' waste has collected. No odor escapes from the machine, even after the garbage has been left in it for several days, because a constant draft en- tering from beneath carries any odors up the flue. The operation of the incinerator is so simple, however, that it will be found just as easy to burn up the garbage of one day as it will to wait several days for an accumulation of waste. You simply apply the match to the lighter, exactly as if you were lighting your gas oven.

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