Yet another use for the FEL

[Iplayfarmer]

Coming home from the family reunion today, my Mom had me stop by her house and pick up a bunch of aluminum cans. I like to have the cans crushed so as to minimize the storage area they take up until I can take them to the recycler to cash them in.

I made a pile and then went at it with the FEL. I was surprised at how much weight a bunch of cans will hold up. I had to use a combination of driving over them and smashing them with the FEL. It was still faster than stomping on all of them though.

 

[BTDT]

Might be a new project. Adapt/build something like a log splitter to crush cans (use ram to compact cans into a tube or box). But with the price of fuel, that might eat up your profits.

 

[MSWoodlot]

Was the original post a commercial for Diet Pepsi?

MSWoodlot

 

[AndyMA]

Are these deposit cans or just turn in for aluminum cans? Around here cans have to be near perfect to turn them in.

Andy

 

[Iplayfarmer]

Was the original post a commercial for Diet Pepsi?

MSWoodlot

Like I said...I got them from my Mom's house. Apparently she's on a diet Pepsi kick.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

Are these deposit cans or just turn in for aluminum cans? Around here cans have to be near perfect to turn them in.

Andy

These are just "turn in for aluminum" cans. Mostly they are just "keep them out of the garbage" cans that my son collects to get some money to buy toys. Mom and Dad still burn their garbage in barrels behind their house. If they can keep the glass and metal out of the barrels, they can go a lot longer between dumps.

 

[LBrown59]

Coming home from the family reunion today, my Mom had me stop by her house and pick up a bunch of aluminum cans. I like to have the cans crushed so as to minimize the storage area they take up until I can take them to the recycler to cash them in.

I made a pile and then went at it with the FEL. I was surprised at how much weight a bunch of cans will hold up. I had to use a combination of driving over them and smashing them with the FEL. It was still faster than stomping on all of them though.

Been there done that last summer.

 

[jeffinsgf]

Buy her a wall mounted can crusher. It's no big chore if you do them one at a time as they're used. Take up less room waiting for you to pick them up, too.

 

[GaryM]

I've got one of these: Find Multi Crush Can Crusher and other Trash & Recycle Cans at Aubuchon Hardware and it works great. The cans are "captured" and cruch nicely. A different model I once had tended to sometime shoot the cans across the garage if they didn't collapse correctly.

This one works very well.

 

[daTeacha]

I wouldn't make a habit of driving over them. If the things fold just the right way, they can form a point and puncture a tire, which would put a serious dent in your recycling profits.

 

[Farwell]

In the area of Michigan where I live the containers have to go through a machine that reads the bar code printed on the container so the containers have to be in good shape or the machine rejects them. The machine takes glass, plastic and aluminum.
Where I lived in California the containers were crushed so they would occupied a smaller space and were hauled to a scrap yard that weighed them and paid by the pound plus a state refund amount. I had a heavy duty steel can crusher that my son made for me that crushed them to about 1/4 inch thick.
Guess the condition varies from state to state.

 

[woodlot]

Carefull with that pepsi on the concrete. My wife left a paper bag of "empty" coke cans on my garage floor and the coke soaked bag seriously etched the concrete! I was quick to point out that my beer cans never do that.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

I wouldn't make a habit of driving over them. If the things fold just the right way, they can form a point and puncture a tire, which would put a serious dent in your recycling profits.

You're kidding!? I can see how in theory under perfect conditions this could happen, but I just don't think in the real world it would.

I want to hear first hand from someone who actually had this happen to them.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

Carefull with that pepsi on the concrete. My wife left a paper bag of "empty" coke cans on my garage floor and the coke soaked bag seriously etched the concrete! I was quick to point out that my beer cans never do that.

I actually was watching for that. I know that just about any soda can be pretty corrosive. I've heard of guys freeing seized engines with a can of coke.

Additionally, I worked in an organic chemistry student lab for a while when I was in college. When students welded their glassware together with boiling fuming nitric acid, we'd go through a process of progressively more aggressive caustics. When all else had failed, we'd invite the student to go buy a can of Sprite. We'd soak the glassware in the Sprite overnight, and almost every time, the joint would come apart with very little effort.

I just realized something as I write this...Why didn't we just start with the Sprite?