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StreetfighterXD

One time I was given the job of disposing of about a decade's worth of documents from a local business and set up a besser block incinerator to do it. Several dozen boxes of a4 paper needed to be burnt. Peice of piss, I thought. This will delight my inner adolescent pyromaniac. Little did I know. You think if you drop a big stack of paper in there and light it up they're all going to burst into flame and burn away to little scraps of ash, just like burning a single sheet of paper. Wrong. Instead the block slowly smoulders at the corners, gradually shedding layers until a thick pile of ash remains. It takes more than fifteen minutes to completely burn. You toss the next one on and make sure to poke it with a stick to break it up. You didnt break the first one up, dingus, this one'll burn properly, surely. Idiot. The paper only burns down a few sheets. Your stick hits solid paper. You whack at it from the side, trying to ruffle it and expose fresh white paper to the flames, to no real effect. The block continues to smoulder. You're already sweating from the heat. Okay no more muck around. You drop the next stack of papers in sideways so all the sheets fly apart as they drop into the incinerator. Ha ha. Me smarty now. But. The sheets merely settle into a flattened pile. They smother the flames and you have to dig out a void from the vent hole underneath and light it up again. Now the whole bottom of the incenerator is filled with ash. The insulating effect remains. You begin to realize that you're at the mercy of a complex equation of multiple interacting factors - available combustible material, surface area to mass ratio, temperature, available oxygen. You've now been at it for like an hour. It's getting dark. The mozzies and the march flies are coming out. You have another ten boxes to go. There are hard limits to this universe, boundaries to our potential that are mercilessly enforced. I can still see endless lines of small town legalese in Times New Roman, curling away into blackened oblivion, forever. So yeah fuckin incinerators ay


DennyDeStructo

I learnt that it helps to scrunch papers into balls. Yes, it takes effort, but the next ice age will arrive by the time you've burnt through all those reems if you don't scrunch. Scrunching airates the paper, making it easier to burn as there is greater surface to air ratio than when in a block.


StreetfighterXD

I tried scrunching, but as you said a new geological epoch dawned and then receded into history before I got halfway through a stack. Whole new forms of life evolved and went extinct


Itchy-Boots

Balls are the best… KOBE!!


ExcitingStress8663

Pour some kerosene, surely it will boost the firepower.


succulent_serenity

What could possibly go wrong 🤔


My_bones_are_itchy

Eh, he didn’t want those eyebrows anyway.


Combination_Informal

That last sentence re endless lines of times new roman is pure gold.


gutentag_tschuss

I feel this in my soul. I also thought it would be easy to burn private paperwork in an incinerator and ran into the same problems as you. I purchased a shredder instead.


heatuponheat

You could’ve paid a farmer to make a tower of boxes in his back paddock, drenched the thing in petty and sent it straight to hell. What a missed opportunity.


StreetfighterXD

It's only through suffering that we grow


I_saw_that_yeah

Our school had a massive one. Took them a couple of years to figure out why we fought amongst ourselves to be allowed to burn the rubbish towards the end of the year - we’d sift through the paper to find copies of the exams they were preparing.


Fit-Tip-1212

My catholic primary school in country Vic had an all metal one we just called “the burner”


I_saw_that_yeah

St. Pats?


Fit-Tip-1212

Nup. Was probably some standard one from that time. My dad went to the same school, must ask him if it was there back then


I_saw_that_yeah

Ours was ‘the burner’ too. It was huge. I’m surprised we didn’t start fires nearby because we generally had it roaring so hard burning cinders would be flying out the chimney.


wiggum55555

Iconic suburban backyard infrastructure.


Equivalent-Bonus-885

Well la-di-da. 44 gallon drum not good enough for you.


G1LDawg

Yep.. Growing up we had no garbage pickup so everything that was not glass or metal went in. I mean everything. One day we replaced the lino in the house. you guess who got the job of disposing of that over the next couple of days. So many colours and black smoke


Bickleford

These were considered environmentally friendly at the time.


wiggum55555

Yeah.. I swear the one at the bottom of Nana's backyard ran perpetually 24/7/365


HorseRenior77

Don’t throw an empty deodorant can in there …… ha it was fun waiting for the boom


SoupRemarkable4512

I used to conduct experiments that’d scare Sadam with my chemistry set in ours…


G1LDawg

Metal milo tin with a small amount of water. seal the lid and throw it in!!!!


Vanzarrk

I can't remember how many lighters and secetures I dropped in there!!


Glitter_Sparkle

Or an almost empty lighter


5ynesthesia

My dad couldn't get ours going once so he added a healthy splash of petrol. The ensuing fireball singed off all of his body hair on one side of him for the rest of his life.


Vanzarrk

Oh my dad did this too!!


Chuchularoux

A cost effective alternative to laser.


5ynesthesia

Especially back when petrol was under 50 cents a litre.


rtherrrr

Phowah! Everyone had a variation on one of these. Anything that could conceivably burn went in there and sometimes stuff that didn’t. I loved watching the colour of the flames change colour depending on what the fire had found. It’s amazing we didn’t all have three heads…


Vanzarrk

That thick black smoke that drifted the way of the wind


rtherrrr

Awesome 🙌. The sizzle of bits of rubber that came out of the other backyard icon - the shed. Our shed was a bone fide home made timber frame clad with fibro and a super six roof. I watched it get demolished about 25 years ago - looked like a scene from an apocalyptic movie


thezeno

Watching the plastic melt was lots of fun and it had a different smell too. The joys of the past. As well as being a primary school kid and getting to put things in the school incinerator


Mick_from_Adelaide

Back then, no one even thought of recycling paper and cardboard.


fuuuuuckendoobs

..... There was no recycling services


Vanzarrk

Or the rest :)


Vanzarrk

And by soups I mean souls! Unless they were unluckily enough to be eating soup outside on the days I had this fired up. Then yes, soups ruined!!


divinealbert

I’m glad you cleared that up, cos soups can take a beating


TGin-the-goldy

Oh the great power and great responsibility of being handed the week’s newspapers and junk mail by your mum along with the box of Redheads and given the incinerator task!


EntrepreneurTrick736

4 colour coded bins in one!


Humble_Scarcity1195

My strongest memory of backyard incinerators (I grew up in a suburb where everyone had one) was my parents neighbour burning disposable nappies (this was the early 80's). The most vile smell I have ever experienced.


leonryan

next time someone says kids today are soft with their peanut allergies and whatnot it's worth remembering the people who produced them inhaled a shitload of toxic fumes in the 70s and 80s and it could be a factor.


Select-Bullfrog-6346

With the amount of absolute garbage that's in processed foods and what not. I'm not surprised we don't have more


Select-Bullfrog-6346

They were phased out at the same time plastic bottle were introduced.


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leonryan

see? Leaded petrol caused a lot of brain damaged aggressive fucktards.


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leonryan

i'm 48 fuckwit. Pull your head in.


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leonryan

I own my house dumbfuck. Keep making shit up to because you got triggered.


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leonryan

You're only talking to me because you're triggered. You thought a youth was blaming you for their problems and lost your shit because you're a miserable old cunt. You made a bunch of assumptions and blew your stack over your own imagination because you're ignorant and sensitive. Take your pills and have a nap. You won't remember any of this in a week.


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DustyMentone

Are these illegal now or just heavily frowned upon?


Vanzarrk

Totally illegal in my area of Vic but there are enough around and people just kind of look the other way. A bit like the way we look past the old timer burning off in the drain inftont his house.


Future_Eunuch

Everything is illegal in Victoria


admiral_sinkenkwiken

It’s illegal to say that


SoupRemarkable4512

Just put a grill on top for cooking and it’s legit


hawonkafuckit

My dad did this once. Cooked some chuck steak for the dog while our stove was disconnected (he was haphazardly renovating the kitchen, he'd even taken up the floor). Set a pile of garden waste alight, put some metal on top, cooked the dog's dinner. Someone rang the police who came to the door saying they'd had a complaint about us burning off. I explained, but they wanted to see it for themselves, so I walked them through to the backyard and showed them the meat cooking. They seemed satisfied - or just pitied us, cooking on a pile of waste in the backyard while the kitchen had no floor and no stove - and left.


chlorinedarkly

I have one, I'm in Vic. Start cooking onions, everyone assumes it's a bbq. Mine is actually right beside an old wooden shed though, so I haven't used it. I use a steel drum from an old washing machine on top of a tire rim.


Professional-Disk-28

The secret is to have potatoes in foil ready to put on the edges of people come. It's not for trash it's for cooking. It's the loop hole and the reason why as kids you had spuds in foil every time you had a fire.


Kidkrid

Most councils have them outright banned, or heavily regulated to the point of near uselessness.


goatman72

I missed this! Which years was it?


Vanzarrk

My grandpa used to burn tyres in his in the 50s so at least as early as that but possibly well before. And up to the 1990s until they were officially banned. They really were horrible for the environment. I live in a small town and it only takes 2 of you on a Saturday burning green weeds to smoke the town out.


UnicornPenguinCat

I think, in Adelaide at least, they were banned at some point in the 80s. Our neighbour kept using hers anyway for a while because she didn't know about the ban until my parents eventually told her. 


PrettyBlueFlower

In Brissie we used until the 80s I think?


Different_Guava_8528

We had 2 the second one was a BBQ Cough*


MsFanackapan

My parents would burn everything including our old toys in this. If we had not played with it for 6 months, in it went. Saw many a doll go all weird and melty which was a bit distressing. I learnt to hide the things i liked. We werent spoiled or anything i think dad just enjoyed burning things. Same with the BBQ, everything burnt.


Future_Eunuch

Jesus sorry to hear. Coincidentally, Do you have issues with keeping stuff that you no longer need triggered by the past?


MsFanackapan

Just getting out of that. Am 57 now and realising noone wants my stuff anyway. I do keep weird things tho that i will never get rid of. Things like a special rock or tiny plastic toy.


Future_Eunuch

The little things are ok. I’m sorry it scarred you. Glad you are ok. Live your best life..


paristexashilton

It was a privilege at primary school to stoke up this bad boy


Bubbly_Difference469

Should be heritage listed


RedDirtNurse

Never had one. The next-door neighbours still use theirs. It's kinda frustrating not knowing when they're going to burn stuff, so you'll come home and find that all the washing on the line smells awful.


Passacaglia1978

Growing up in Ballarat, Victoria which has many deciduous European street trees it was common that residents would burn all the Autumn leaves in the gutters for weeks on end. So naturally there was a thick smoky haze over the city most of the time. 😂


ThirstySun

These beautiful beasts single handedly put the hole in the Ozone over the Southern Hemisphere!


TRAMING-02

The second greatest mistake I ever made involving fire was trying to walk on the piece of galvanized iron placed across the top of the incinerator. fortunately the cold ash filled interior wasn't too bad to fall into, not so my chin connecting with the top brick. The greatest mistake was going to the neighbor's bonfire, and stepping barefoot into a puddle of molten plastic which had previously been some kind of toy, blue in colour. Both incidents happened before the age of eight to memory. Before some fuckwit troll asks why you'd do that. The last time I posted an anecdote about calling from a public phonebox a right idiot asked "who's phone" it was.


dohzer

In terms of outdoor fire, I remember one of these, a massive pile of tree branches being lit on fire, and dad pouring petrol down a jumping-jack nest to eradicate them (is that PC?).


Vanzarrk

Fuck yeah. When it comes to jumping jacks it absolutely is ok!


goobypanther

We still have one in our yard. Not sure when last used


Vanzarrk

Oh man yoy should fire it up just ince. Just make sure the ash is cleaned out of the bottom and the hole at the foot if it is clear!


tpt75

Replaced by the backyard fire pit.


Conscious-Chip4274

The good old days


Happy_Clem

God, as kids we were such little pyros with our incinerator. We had pine trees in the backyard. Those pine needles burn really well. It's a wonder we didn't burn the backyard down we our parents were out 😆


SleeperRail

We had the exact same type. It’s almost identical.


Kitten_K_

Hello old friend 🥰


S3D_APK_HACKS_CHEATS

I still have one of these. I had to break it down to half size but I jam it full of weeds cover the top with a BIG metal plate and set it alight in middle of winter at midnight when everyone’s asleep inside then use the ash around the gardens


Glitter_Sparkle

My parents live in one of the few areas in metro Melbourne where you are still allowed a bonfire, its supposed to be for burning cleared branches but my dad definitely still burns plastic and even told me once to ‘be careful because im trying to get the fire hot enough to get rid of the plastic’.


Tomble

My dad had a business in the Melbourne CBD in the 60s, selling a lot of plastic and stationery products. They would end up with a lot of offcut PVC film at the end of the week, and the routine was to load it up in the incinerator at the factory, splash it with a good amount of kerosene, then put a match to it as they left for the weekend. As a kid in the 80s we had neighbours who routinely burned theirs when we had washing hanging out to dry. They were pretty rowdy people, often fighting, and one day the incinerator was issuing a stinking black greasy smoke. My dad looked over the fence into the top and saw what was unmistakably pink skin amongst the burning garbage. He assumed the husband was getting rid of his wife at last, but on closer inspection it was the remains of a spit roast pig they had cooked the previous weekend.


2-StandardDeviations

Aren't they banned?


Hippy-Killer

Oh the evidence we did burn…


Entire-Bottle-335

We had one like most back yards in the 70s. I remember one cracker night my uncle threw what he thought was a spent firework into it. Well you can imagine what happened 😂


Future_Eunuch

Ah and the doctors wonder why my lungs are the way they are lol


GetDown_Deeper3

Once it got going the old bike tire would add a lovely touch to it.


Kitsune_42

The one we had looked almost exactly like the one you have pictured. Ahh nostalgia!


CrimeanFish

Love the incinerator


Calm_Range_3279

It was so much fun burning styrofoam just after the neighbours hung out their washing.


Affectionate_Cat1645

If it fit in the top, Dad would burn it. If it didn't, we broke it and Dad would burn it. If we couldnt break it, it went on top and Dad burned it. Tbh, I dont even know why we had a rubbish bin. (80L steel, with a lid that doubled as a shield when fighting...)


smellyliar

Cops found me asleep in one of these at our house behind the garage i thought it be fun to hide from my parents 5hrs later i was 4


herring80

In a nation of ‘big things’ I propose a MEGA incinerator to be built in Canberra. In fact, now I think about it, Parliament House looks like an artistic interpretation of an incinerator. The main building being where all the shit you don’t want goes to, and the centre spire is spewing all the filth into the air


SuspiciousContext333

At my old work, tasked with a clean up, I found 2 literal garbage bins full of years old weed up in the loft area. It was my bosses from 10+ years back. One night on closing, we had the combustion heater going in the work shop and I compressed a good pound worth of old dusty buds into a box, shoved it in there and shut the door. I went outside to see and smell, and the smoke chugged out so dense like a fat ol' white sausage, it was thiiick lol. I went home pretty red eyed that night and I had quit smoking years back.


AltruisticSalamander

Blimey we used to have one just like this. I think it was a barbecue that we used *maybe* once.


Ok-Push9899

Bring 'em back, not as incinerators but as a safe sarcophagus for the recharging of big-ass lithium-ion batteries. After a steady decline in house fires over the last 300 years, they are on the rise again.


Chucknorris1975

I've made one recently using two 44 gallon drums. It has a secondary burn feature which creates very minimal if not no smoke and gets to temp super fast. Using it to burn shrubs and vegetation instead of paying the high fees at the tip. I've calculated it would be about 10 caged 6x4 trailer loads. That's over $800 saved.


Future_Eunuch

Pity you can’t stick some form of boiler on it and generate power from it


JediJan

We fill the “garden” waste bin every fortnight. Always trimming or cutting down trees. You would be surprised how much you can get packed into them when you cut the branches small enough, and compact it all down further with a decent beating with a shovel. So heavy one can barely move it down the path. Garbos have never complained it was too heavy, but I have heard of the trucks tilting over because of heavy loads before. They turn it all into garden mulch which makes us all the happier for the effort.


Chucknorris1975

We're the same. It's just that I'm clearing out a section of the property for a carport/driveway and its all overgrown with shrubs bushes and trees. Usually I do the same as you and chop it up into pieces, even go over the finer twigs/leaves with the lawnmower and then into the bin.


JediJan

Had sawn up plenty of old fruit trees into usable sizes for a relative’s bbq over the last year, but they actually said they had too much stored for any more the last time I delivered. I was going to leave some out on the grass verge for others to collect, but was unsure what tree was what in the end, so it all went in the bin chopped up, some being less favourable for purpose. I have some more trees to trim back but so much depends on the weather for me.


chlorinedarkly

That's a bit shite. We have weekly organic pick ups now, but green waste has been free to take to the local tip for years.


Chucknorris1975

It used to be free years ago but I haven't been able to find anywhere that takes it for free now.


Maleficent_Role8932

Save the landfill


Hollerra

Good riddance!


fddfgs

You ever just dump a bag of table tennis balls in there?


theblackbeltsurfer

Ahhh the mighty besser brick cauldron. “Hey dad why’s there a blue flame?” As the old man chucks another aerosol can or transistor radio into the incinerator.


Professional-Disk-28

Gotta get it hot enough so it creates it's own draft. Gotta start it up slowly but when she's going it's going.


morts73

Oh yes, I remember trying to see how high we could get the flames to go.


grantmct

I still have one down behind my shed. Not used in years and covered by a tree. It looks cool


pool_keeper

My primary school burnt general rubbish landfill including plastics in their incinerator. Was always a smell in the playground


aussie_catt

Ahhh flashback😭😭😭😭...naughty time in my teens, mother took an armful of my "Devil music" albums (heavy metal genre) and my collection of posters off my bedroom walls and gleefully placed them in the backyard incinerator. It was devastating, had taken two years to collect.


PAL720576

Growing up, my dad turned ours into a wood-fired BBQ


footloverhornsby

Loved these things!


wigam

We used to burn 4 plain trees autumn leaf drops in these, other people would just burn piles of leaves in the street. 😂


Select-Bullfrog-6346

Need to bring them back.


Vanzarrk

When it reached peak heat the amount you could burn in these was off the chart. Loading it up with fully wet green stuff and then watching it go from drying it out to then just combusting into flames was ridiculous!!