The trash was mainly wastepaper, lunch bags, waxed paper and possibly a few food scraps such as apple cores, orange rinds, etc. from lunches each student brought. There would have been minimal plastic or aluminum packaging at the time. One of the older students would bring the wastebasket to a 50-gallon drum well away from the school building and light the contents with ordinary kitchen matches. It was a rural area, and that was how farm families disposed of combustible waste.