Your thoughts please! On trash compactors.

[Designgeek]

Some cities are moving toward charging for refuse collection by *weight*, so reducing the volume with a compactor won't help lower your trash bills.

If you have a mixed recycling program that puts all recyclables in one bin, a compactor would be good for steel & aluminum cans, and plastics such as milk and soda bottles, since those items take up space like crazy and flattening them by hand (or foot) can be an annoying task.

Also if you have a home office and a shredder, these machines can be useful for compressing the shredded paper for recycling.

The thing that I've heard breaks down easily on these machine: the long screws that power the compressing panel get worn or can get slightly bent.

If you plan to use plastic bags, use thick ones; thin ones will get punctured or torn easily.

 

[tolivac]

WOW!! Dense compaction if you put your shredded paper in it!!A shredded paper baler.also using the compactor to "Bale" the recycle items.Years ago at one workplace I was at-they had the large Marathon Hydrualic compactor(15Hp powerpak)The shredder from the "red bag" room-classified materials-went from the red bag room shredders into the compactor.

 

[petek]

Something to ponder about that recycling bit..just about everything here now has a deposit attached for recycling. Milk cartons, little juice boxes, every type of bottle regardless. Wouldn't leave much to go in the compactor.

 

[tolivac]

The recycling and deposits on containers seem to have killed off a lot of the interest and sales in home compactors.Seems like the largest market for them is in the larger compactors and balers for commercial,, industrial , and gov't use.

 

[kenmore1978]

compactor screws

"The thing that I've heard breaks down easily on these machine: the long screws that power the compressing panel get worn or can get slightly bent."

My '78 KM(WP) compactor is still going strong, though recently the mechanism that makes it revers and stop at the end of stroke has failed, so I have to hold the button in for an entire cycle. When the mahcine was new, I had a problemin that a plastic bag got wrapped around one of the screws and jammed it. In lter models WP put a plastic tube shiled around the screws to keep plastic bags from getting caught

 

[tbolt25]

old style Gladco late 1970's to early 1980's industr

I remember when I used to be in the third and fourth grades at my local elementary school, in the cafeteria they had this big double ram huge Gladco trash compactor that the students would put their trash into whenever they were done eating-the operator would start the compactor, and one cylinder-shaped ram would cycle downward, crush the garbage, bottom out, then the ram would cycle back upward, then once that ram was done a second cylinder-shaped ram would cycle downward, crush the garbage, bottom out, then cycle back upward-it was a lot of fun to watch! Our local middle school also had this very same brand and model compactor, but with a brown cabinet. Does anyone out there have any pictures of this particular trash compactor they could post or any videos of one in action? I would greatly appreciate that.

 

[deeptub]

KitchenAid 18

Along with the original KitchenAid design garbage disposers, Viking seems to have acquired the design of the 18" KA compactor.

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www.vikingrange.com

 

[deeptub]

I should add that, even if I had all the money in the world, I could not bring myself to spend $1700 on a Viking trash compactor.

T.

 

[tolivac]

For $1700,think I would just throw the trash into the can.You could probably get a used commercial one for that price.Would be more fun-Like the double ram "Gladco" compactor described in another entry.Sounds like a "precrusher" type compactor-Glosser systems and Marathon make "precrusher" compactors today.-for industrial use-On the Glosser site-they show their Precrusher crushing what looks like a washer-under the "stove" video.The Glosser unit has a stepped ram-the first part of it goes thru 3 precrush cycles-than the ram retracts all of the way and the lower step portion pushes the precrushed trash into the container.the Marathon one has a hydrualically operated gate that comes down-the trash in the chamber is crushed against it-than the gate retracts,and the ram then pushes the precrushed trash into the container.these units can have motors up to 100Hp.Lots of crushing fun.

 

[kenmore1978]

KA compactor

My Dad used to have a KA compactor, it was different in that it was wider than other brands of compactors and the chamber was round instead of rectangular. Also, one would install the bag first, then there were 3 metal "shields" that together would form a full circle. These were installed so that they were INSIDE the bag, and pulled out when it was time to empty the machine.

 

[rinso]

I agree that compactors are a must for those who have volume metered trash. That was the reason I bought my Kenmore compactor in 2001. But, when I moved to a new city where this wasn't required, the compactor became less useful. I loved it as another one of my appliance toys, but here were its drawbacks:
1. The compacted load can sometimes be very heavy and start to approach the weight and density of the sun's core.
2. Cans and other objects sometimes flipped up on top of the ram and were tedious and time-consuming to extricate.
3. Sensing microswitches were easily damaged or their mounts bent.
4. The drawer would occaissionally move forward when the ram was retracting, sometimes jamming the mechanism.
5. The aerosol deoderizer mechanism failed after less than a year of service anyway.
I never put wet garbage or glass in it, so I'm not sure how it would handle those.

 

[kenmore1978]

compactor drawbacks

Rinso, what brand is it?

 

[rinso]

It's a Kitchen Aid manufactured Kenmore

 

[kenmore1978]

shape

round or rectangular drawer?