Daily Object Photo: City Dumpsters, Lined-Up Dumpsters

Dumpster

A dumpster is a large steel waste receptacle designed to be emptied into garbage trucks. The word is a genericized trademark of Dumpster, an American brand name for a type of mobile garbage bin (MGB). Generic usage of dumpster is also common in Australia, although Dumpster is not an established brand there.

The word "dumpster", first used commercially in 1936, came from the Dempster-Dumpster system of mechanically loading the contents of standardized containers onto garbage trucks, which was patented by Dempster Brothers in 1937. The containers were called Dumpsters, a portmanteau of the company's name with the word dump. However, it took the Dempster Dumpmaster, the first successful front-loading garbage truck (which used this system), to popularize the word.

The word dumpster has had at least three trademarks associated with it by Dempster Brothers, but today it is often used as a genericized trademark.

In British and Australian English, the terms wheelie bin and skip are more commonly used (although they are not perfect synonyms). In some other countries the more descriptive term frontloader container is often used, either in one or two words.

(Source: Wikipedia.org)

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