Flag burning only the cotton and wool, bury the nylon or recycle

 This Sunday, 1 Merchant Rd, Framingham, across from the prision, at 4PM, various Vietnam Veteran groups, police and fire will burn (in a dignified way) the used flags turned into the Memorial building, plus the smaller grave side flags picked up every year at the cemeteries. The last time I remember this happening was in 2008 at Cushing Park. Peter Harvell was the VSO back then and Larry Herson from the Jewish War Veterans was the other veteran involved. It took many hours of constant stirring of the burning flags to burn. The smoke was black, thick and as I know now, or am aware of now, that smoke was toxic, because most of the flags were made of nylon. My flags at my house are cotton and the POW MIA flag is nylon. 

I write this as a historical reference to what happened in 2009, when the VSO Peter Harvell packed up the flags in bags and shipped them off to an incinerator. And the reason was, most flags are made out of nylon  and burning plastic creates toxins in the air, so the practice was stopped. The MWDN covered it well. 

https://www.metrowestdailynews.com/article/20090529/NEWS/305299902

Worn-out flags turned in for retirement won’t have a ceremonial burning with veterans and reverent words to mark Flag Day this year.

Worn-out flags turned in for retirement won’t have a ceremonial burning with veterans and reverent words to mark Flag Day this year.

Instead, the dozen or so garbage bags full of worn flags will be hauled in the back of a town pickup and dumped in a commercial incinerator for burning.

It’s not a lack of patriotism forcing the move away from the flag-burning ceremony this year. The problem is the flags, which are made from polyester and nylon. Those materials create acrid, toxic smoke when burned.

“We’re veterans, not environmental terrorists,” said Peter Harvell, the town’s veteran services director.

During last year’s Flag Day ceremony, bags of old flags were burned outdoors in Cushing Park and the result was a scene less than honorable.

“It was a black, plastic-burning cloud,” Harvell said. “It’s just too toxic to burn.”

Larry Herson from the Framingham Veterans Council said it took four hours of stirring to burn off the stinky goo of melted flags.

Many small flags are made of 50 percent polyester. Larger flags are often made of nylon.

Tattered flags from town cemeteries are picked up by town crews and added to the flags residents deposit in drop boxes. The bags of flags from those collections now fill Harvell’s office.

“I have hundreds of pounds of plastic to dispose of properly,” Harvell said.

FlagCode

The heart of the matter is “destroying in a dignified way”. The Flag Code is the single federal statute that refers to flag disposal. It states:

(k) The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.

The code was written in 1923, well before the advent of synthetic fabrics. I think it is clear that the code directs us to not simply dispose of flags but to destroy them so they cannot be displayed or used in a disrespectful manner. There’s nothing in the flag code that specifies exactly when a flag is destroyed. Flag retirement ceremonies I have attended seem to favor cutting the flag down the center of the long axis between the bottom of the union (blue field) and the first long stripe before it is burned.

The code seems to contemplate alternatives to burning in the use of the modifier ‘preferably‘. I think any reasonable person would consider recycling a dignified method of disposal. Perhaps the best way forward is finding a local resource for fabric recycling and asking them to accept flags you have destroyed by cutting as described above in a dignified manner.

It is worth mentioning that the Flag Code is the single official source for flag etiquette. All other sources , suggestions, directions, ceremonial observances, history and laws you may find floating around the internet (including the one you are reading now) are the opinion of an individual or a group and nothing more.