The Joy of Burn Barrels

My rural grandparents used a burn barrel, and I recently took comfort in following their lead.  I don’t recall their ever putting a trash can at the curb.  There was no trash can and no curb—just a grassy embankment where the gravel road met their property.  Household trash had two destinations in that time and place: the rubbish heap and the burn barrel.  “Rubbish” consisted of anything that would rot: coffee grounds, food scraps, eggshells, plant waste, anything once-living and now-dead…you get the point.  Things that could go up in smoke were not put on the rubbish heap; they went into the burn barrel: paper, cardboard, wood, styrofoam, plastic…. The occasional soda can found its way to the burn barrel, too—even though it didn’t burn—for lack of recycling.  But there was precious little soda (or “pop”) in that house, and never any beer cans for such devout Methodists as they were.

Of course, this was a horrible way to dispose of household refuse.  While the composting was actually a good thing, the burning was a very bad thing—especially in the case of plastics and styrofoam.  Burn barrels are illegal in many municipalities nowadays, including all of Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is located.  But my place up north has an old burn barrel that’s rusting out near the bottom and “leaning toward Fisher,” as my grandfather used to say of anything crooked.  (Fisher is a village in Clarion County.)  I don’t even know if burn barrels are still legal up there, but I had some cardboard items to get rid of, and the burn barrel was beckoning.  The fire made a pleasant glow against the 5:00pm gloaming—warm and bright, everything this season is not.  See how it lights up the snowfield and holds its flame bravely, briefly against the gathering dark?  I know the world is too old for such nonsense, but there was such comfort in standing down there by the edge of the woods, in the chilly gloaming, to warm my body and soul by the orange flames of the burn barrel.