Keep oily waste in the safe container
Industrial fire-safety poster: a smiling worker in a cap lifts the lid of a metal can and drops in a rag, one finger raised, under the headline 'Keep oily waste in the safe container'. The bottom panel compares oily waste to a fire-bomb, with printed flames and a streak of fire. The technique is a mild fear-appeal tied to wartime bombing.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1941
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Bethlehem Steel Company
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Corporation
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Warn or inform
- Themes
- Home front, Labor
- Event
- World War II
- Regime
- Roosevelt administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, retrieved October 4, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. government work)
Bethlehem Steel Company. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-1199 (NAID 514805).
Text on the object
Keep oily waste in the safe container Oily Waste can be as dangerous as a fire-bomb © BETHLEHEM STEEL COMPANY
