Garbage disposal apparatus
OwnerPeter Singinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Garbage disposal apparatus of the type used in fast food restaurants for receiving refuse from food trays has a garbage-receiving cabinet with a vertically slidable door panel operated by a pedal-actuated mechanism, permitting two-handed handling of the food trays. The door panel is retracted by pedal action, leaving an unobstructed access opening available for assured, non-spilling sanitary dumping, as long as the pedal is depressed. The mechanism is supported protectedly and visibly in the space provided between two parallel vertical panels which together form the receiving cabinet front, the foremost of the two panels being transparent. Also positioned in the space between the two front panels is a sound-generating system, activated by the movement of either the door panel or the mechanism moving it.
Claims16
Garbage disposal apparatus for receiving the waste dumped from food trays, which comprises:
- a garbage-receiving cabinet having top and bottom members both horizontally disposed, said top and bottom members being connected by vertically disposed side walls and a vertically disposed rear wall;
- and
- a front wall assembly substantially constituting the front face of said cabinet and hingedly mounted thereon, comprising:
- a pair of vertically disposed parallel walls, each of said parallel walls extending upwardly from said bottom member of said garbage-receiving cabinet to a point below and short of said top member of said garbage-receiving cabinet, the resulting space left between said top member and the tops of said parallel walls thereby forming an access opening for the insertion of garbage-bearing trays and for the dumping of refuse from these trays into said cabinet, said parallel walls being spaced from each other to form a chamber therebetween;
- a vertically disposed door panel of a thickness to fit slidably between said parallel walls within said chamber, said door panel being dimensioned and normally positioned to close said access opening between said top member and said tops of said parallel walls and capable of being moved reciprocally in vertical direction downwardly between said parallel walls to uncover said access opening for tray-dumping and upwardly to re-close said access opening;
- and
- pedal-operated mechanical means for sliding said door panel vertically and reciprocally, first to uncover, and subsequently to re-cover said access opening, said mechanical means being operatively mounted within said chamber between said parallel walls, said chamber being closed at its lower end by said bottom member of said cabinet and substantially closed at its upper end by said vertically reciprocating door panel, whereby said mechanical means are shielded within said chamber both from the refuse being dumped into said garbage-receiving cabinet and from damage from outside said cabinet, and whereby said door panel is also protected from the garbage being dumped when said access opening is exposed and said door panel is in its lowermost position between said parallel walls and within said chamber.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.