Dumpster (brand)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dumpster is an American brand of trash receptacle, and a type of mobile garbage bin or MGB.
The word Dumpster came from the Dempster-Dumpster system of mechanically loading the contents of standardised containers onto garbage trucks, which was patented by Dempster Brothers in the 1930s. 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 (and which used this system), to popularize the word.
The word dumpster has at least two trademarks associated with it[1], but today it is often used as a genericized trademark (see dumpster (term)).
[edit] Dumpster in popular culture
An episode of The Simpsons ("The Otto Show") parodies the genericized trademark issue when Bart Simpson finds school bus driver Otto homeless:[1]
- Bart: Otto-Man? You're living in a dumpster?
- Otto: Ho, man, I wish. Dumpster-brand trash bins are top-of-the-line. This is just a Trash-Co waste disposal unit.
