Smashing Aluminum Cans. Or: Aluminum Cans: Smashing!
By Karina | May 20, 2009
After all the really interesting comments about your hometown recycling programs, I wanted to share this really neat tool I came across on the North Carolina Ferry system – an aluminum can smasher! It makes perfect sense – on a ferry there isn’t much room to carry around lots of full sized cans, so why not just smash them flat and take a smaller bag of cans off to be recycled? How clever! I made my partner take photos of me smashing a can (see above) and we got a bunch of hairy eyeballs in the passenger lounge because why would such a nice couple of kids be taking pictures of the RECYCLING?
This reminds me of two things: one, the story my gramma tells me of how they would flatten out the tin cans and bury them in the back yard because there wasn’t any garbage pick-up back in the day, and two, of the following video, which shoes in graphic and slightly gory detail a really amazing reuse for aluminum cans. Enjoy!
Have you seen a can crusher? Or ever used up your old cans to the fullest as per the video?
Topics: Waste | 10 Comments »
when we were little, my grandpa encouraged us to collect cans for the $ at the aluminum recycling place. so we would collect them everywhere (we didn’t drink soda), especially at the swim meets. we’d bring home big huge bags and smash them with our feet all over the patio. to this day I still dent the can as much as I can before putting it in the recycle bin and my partner teases me for it. but it saves space!!
Am I wrong in thinking that, to receive your deposit back at automated machines, the cans need to be fully intact (ie not smushed?) I don’t drink soda so am not sure…
No, in NY at least, this is very common. I’ve noticed that the return machines around here seem to shred the cans and bottles after they’ve been scanned. At least someone is saving space.
we used to collect cans when I was little as well. My dad would take my sisters and I out to verges near busy roads and other lovely places, and we’d collect all the cans we could find. back home we had to test them all with a magnet (were there some still made of steel or something back in the 80s?) then drain them and crush them with our feet and load up in old potato sacks.
this was also in the days before most companies had paper recycling in offices, so my dad would tell all his colleagues to bring waste paper to his desk then bring it all home for us to destaple and sort.
these were all sold to a recycling company local to us. I remember white paper selling for £80 a ton, which was actually quite a lot back then. Then the price of paper crashed and I don’t think you can sell it at all really anymore so my parents just recycle in the local council green bin like everyone else nowadays.
ironically, (like linda) we never actually had drinks cans in our house as we didn’t drink fizzy drinks, and I still don’t so I’ve never had to think about reusing. my computer won’t let me view the video so i can’t see what’s going on there – I’m intrigued…
re: the video …
ha! i mean, HA!!!! where can i see those guys play live? ;)
I know, right? they are hilarious!
We have that exact device at my grandmother’s house. It makes easy work of recycling can and it’s fun to boot.
You’ve never seen one of those? It never would have occurred to me that those things are rare, I see them all over the place. We had one growing up and my in-laws have one, too. My family doesn’t drink enough coke to warrant a whole contraption, though.
There’s a camp at Burning Man called the Earth Guardians, and one of the volunteer options there is for people to run a bicycle, and the rear wheel has a press – it smashes cans completely flat between two wheels and shoots them out into a bin. It makes a great sound. (They also give bike loans that have a trailer for collecting cans attached to it – you can ride their bike wherever you like as long as you come back when you’re full.)
[...] Smashing Aluminum Cans. Or: Aluminum Cans: Smashing! | Tiny Choices 20 May 2009. Or: Aluminum Cans: Smashing! By Karina | May 20, 2009. Then the price of paper crashed and I don't think you can sell it at all really Smashing Aluminum Cans. Or: Aluminum Cans: Smashing! | Tiny Choices [...]