What ever happend to trash compactors?

[lightedcontrols]

Love my......

...compactor! I bought a Viking because they use the old Hobart design. I can't remember one of my kitchens that DIDN'T have a compactor. Lightedcontrols

 

[danemodsandy]

The Trouble With Compactors....

From the standpoint of sales and marketing was that they didn't make anything effortless.

While they did - and still do - fulfill their stated promise that large quantities of trash will be compacted to a much smaller volume, they introduced two largish problems of their own. 1) The compacted bagful of trash can be appallingly heavy and 2) If you don't like scrubbing a trash can, you're really gonna hate keeping a compactor stink-free.

The best "new product" ideas are those which, frankly, promote laziness. The microwave oven succeeded not because people bought into its cooking ability; it succeeded because people could pop frozen ready meals into it, touch a key and get hot food without effort.

Compactors do what they do quite well, but not everyone can deal with the use and care requirements, which limits sales. Everyone can use a microwave, whether they want to take care of it or not.

 

[magic_clean]

Compactor

care and cleaning can be kept to a minimum, if wet trash is kept out of the bin or swaddled in old newspaper. Additionally, when crushing bottles it helps to cover them as well with a cereal box or other heavy paper waste.

-L.P.

 

[danemodsandy]

Leslie:

I get that, absolutely - a little thought can make a compactor much more user-friendly.

The trouble is that a lot of people don't want to think, and even among those who do, there is a complicating factor known as The Children. Kids faced with a magic appliance will put anything they can into it; you're lucky if they don't stuff the dog into one.

My point is merely that compactors do nothing to ease the lives of the mindless, in the way that microwave ovens do. And that is why compactors are not in nearly every American house, the way microwaves are.

 

[tolivac]

Out my way you seldem see home type compactors-folks just put their trash out hedre for the trash trucks to pick up and run thru the trucks compactor.Just now the City of Greenville bought some really beautiful auto SL trucks-McNelius bodies on International Chassis.Since I am out of town-the trucks aren't used my way.You have to subscribe to one of the private trash Companies-Pak-er or Davids Trash.I take my trash to the transfer station site-each of these site has Roll off dumpsters for Bottles&cans,Furniture,White goods,cardboard,and yard waste.A Baker compactor takes care of the gen trash.Again,have the dump site operator run the compactor for me-again the nice sound of popping bags.I have only seen like two home type compactors here-one at a yard sale-another at the swap shop.
Magic appliances-remember when someone washed their poodle dog and put him into the microwave to dry the dog?Remembere that from years ago.The magic compactors here are the Baker and Marathon compactors at the dump sites,and the Leach,McNelious,EZ-Pak,and Pak Mor trash trucks on the routes my way.Today is trash day-will see what trucks I can spot!

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

COMPACTIVITY:

All in all, all you get is an appliance that turns 30 Pounds of Garbage into 30 Pounds of Garbage! No surprise in ecological times lie the '70's this appliance right down to the sickly bodily fluid colors that owning a Compactor was in vogue!

Grade schools not wanting to deal w/ tons of gabage in smelly garbage cans had the big stainless steel Gladco, that the dried-up cole slaw would have to be filed off the cylinders that ram it down...

(And an anachronism: There was one in the school cafeteria in the movie GREASE, set in the '50's that I recognized from our lunch room, and it seems as though every school used the same model which hadn't changed in 20-years...!)

TEN CENTS TO TRASH:

25-years-ago, returned pop & beer bottles had to be hand-sorted & I worked at a drug store sorting out the stuff (often NEVER cleaned, or washed out--not even SUCKED OUT, as I do!) which took up the entire stock room, having to be put in bags & boxes according to manufacurer, just for the trucks delivering the full stuff to have to put the empties into the trucks formerly loaded w/ the stuff we're gonna buy & drink!

Nowadays, machines crush all that plastic, metal & glass along w/ all the back-wash, unconsumed product, and whatever else leaks from the machines which also crush the plastic & metal (the glass remains in one piece) which are in these crates that have to arduously assembled then take up the entire storage area, waiting for the recycling truck that collectively takes this material, porbably sending it off on a barge to China...

Meanwhile, the entire room that these returnables (often in bulk loads, kind'a like the SEINFELD episode where Newman loans his postage van to haul the stuff to Michigan) have to be cleaned out, the machines if they are full have to be emptied, if the printer that tallies up & prints the tickets has to be reapired, and of course the boxes & garbage bags have to be emptied and the floor swept and mopped, especially from the leakage & spillage of the unconsumed product and God knows what else! That's not even to count the stuff WITHOUT a MI deposit/return that people are just too unconscious and lazy to take back to their cars, or thinking they can bring back bleach bottles and detergent bottles and water bottles and lids to pots and pans, and soup cans--thinking that they will be recycled when they really actually go into our big compactor which is referred to as our "Hole In The Wall"....!

-- Dave

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

But on a more positive note, my daughter's best friend's mother has a vintage '80's-'90's Kitchen Aid undercounter compactor in Almond, among her Sub Zero side by side fridge and Bosch dishwasher and Bosch dual-fuel gas range w/ electric oven; just dunno if she still uses it or not...

-- Dave

 

[sudsmaster]

In my town you can select a half-size can for a less than 50% discount on the monthly trash bill. I'd have to do some math to see if it would be cost effective to get a compactor for dry waste. The city does have extensive recycling - with large bins for mixed paper/metal/glass. Usually the big problem on trash day is if I've bought something that has a lot of styrofoam packing. The city doesn't like to have that in the recycle bin (alhough I have added it on occasion without the trash truck refusing it). But often I have to meter that styrofoam out so that the regular trash isn't over-filled. I'm wondering how compacters do on styrofoam...

I don't think that the recycle trucks here do any compacting. It would be counter-productive. I've been out to the recycling facility and they have a very large complex with indoor and outdoor sorting areas, with a small army of workers who separate the various recyclables.

As far as I know there would be no fine for compacting trash here but there may be a weight limit. But since all the lifting at the curb is done with a mechanical arm, it may no longer be an issue.