How to Properly Dispose of an American Flag | Homewood Disposal Service (2024)

FAQs

How to Properly Dispose of an American Flag | Homewood Disposal Service? ›

Fold the flag, preferably in the ceremonial triangle. Make sure it doesn't touch the ground and that it's handled with care. Place the flag into the fire. Be respectful while the flag is burning.

The American Legion passed a resolution about flag retirement ceremonies in 1937, and they've been an important ritual ever since. According to the resolution, "The approved method of disposing of unserviceable flags has long been that they be destroyed by burning."

Take your old flags to your local American Legion post. They will be happy to retire your flags in their next disposal ceremony.

Customers can also check their local Home Depot, Walmart, or veterans organization for flag disposal resources.

Donating your US flag to a Home Depot flag disposal box is the simplest flag disposal technique.

No. The Court has recognized that the First Amendment protects certain forms of symbolic speech. Flag burning is such a form of symbolic speech. When a flag is privately owned, the owner should be able to burn it if the owner chooses, especially if this action is meant in the form of protest.

Donating your US flag to a Ace Hardware flag disposal box is the simplest flag disposal technique.

The flag should never touch anything beneath it, such as the ground, the floor, water, or merchandise. The flag should never be carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and free. The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery.

1. The flag should be folded in its customary manner. 2. It is important that the fire be fairly large and of sufficient intensity to ensure complete burning of the flag.

Meaning of Flag-Folding Program

In the U.S. Armed Forces, at the ceremony of retreat, the flag is lowered, folded in a triangle fold and kept under watch throughout the night as a tribute to our nation's honored dead.

Can you unfold a military funeral flag? ›

Normally, you should maintain the flag folded. But it is perfectly acceptable to raise or fly the American flag, even during a funeral! To do this, you must either display the flag flat on a wall or fly it correctly from outside a flagpole.

After folding, a flag cannot just be thrown in the garbage. The flag needs to be burned. The US Department of Defense says that the fire should be big enough to burn the flag before you put the folded flag on it.

When displayed either horizontally or vertically against a wall, the union should be uppermost and to the flag's own right, that is, to the observer's left. When displayed in a window, the flag should be displayed in the same way, with the union or blue field to the left of the observer in the street.

Donating your US flag to a Ace Hardware flag disposal box is the simplest flag disposal technique.

The U.S. Flag Code states that when a flag is no longer serviceable, for example, torn, worn, tattered, frayed, faded, etc., it is no longer a fitting emblem for display.

(n) When the Flag is used to cover a casket, it should be so placed that the union is at the head and over the left shoulder. The flag should not be lowered into the grave or allowed to touch the ground.