All Right - Let's Talk Trash Compactors?

I've been looking at getting a trash compactor.

They've been on my mind lately, fascinating things, good for the environment, packs and compresses it all for you and serves it up already bagged for you to take out.

Anyone have one of these utterly fascinating pieces of equipment?

How Cool is this:

The trash compactor is a tool that allows you to decrease the impact of your waste on landfills. Trash you place inside the trash compactor is crushed with a metal ram into small and manageable pieces. These pieces are disposed of in a trash compactor bag. A trash compactor is made up out of very few parts. It has the metal ram which crushes the garbage, the bin where you place the garbage and the switch where turn it on.

So,,, basically with a trash compactor we can pack more trash into our landfills, in a smaller amount of space. :shrug:

Use the money for something sensible .......... like another shaving brush ......... :rolleyes:

That's what I told the wife...our ongoing battle over using a tiny foot press garbage can or a bag hanging off the cupboard...I'm losing the discussion, they do look like they do something, so figured I'd ask if anyone has one here...

They had those things back in the late 60's early 70's. Nastiness.

Smashing trash under your cabinet, IMO.

Joke then and a joke now. Just me.

Ask her how many shoes fit into the one she wants :<0) Then buy one. Your going to lose this argument anyway right ?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sharptonn

They had those things back in the late 60's early 70's. Nastiness.

Smashing trash under your cabinet, IMO.

Joke then and a joke now. Just me.

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We had one when I was in high school,, we had to buy special bags for it.

I used to have one. They tend to not last very long and you do have to buy special bags which are quite expensive. Besides, more and more cities are going to recycling so you need individual bags for different types of trash.

strikes me that your rubbish will be in the house for longer and weigh more when you take it to the big bin, besides dont rubbish trucks have compactors anyway.

When I used to have the luxury of time I would sort out our compostables, recyclables and normal rubbish, we produced very little actual rubbish when i did that, though we now seem to produce a lot more having a 9 year old instead of a baby and no composting as i am not at home to do it.

We had one in our last house.

We both swore an oath to the garbage gods the next house would not have one.

Old One:
Used normal white tall kitchen bags.
It was 22 years old and still worked.

We spent more time cleaning the thing than spent on the stove, fridge, microwave and dishwasher combined.

It was prone to getting stuff on top of the compacting plate which required a tear down.

PITA Never again Never

Up here they switched to clear bags for trash so the truck operator could inspect the waste streams generated from individual households for proper sorting etc.
Don't think a trash compactor, which we used to have in our old house, would fly with the new order.
I see bags wth red tags on them left curb side at houses that don't recycle properly after the trucks go by on garbage day. Owners have to re-sort to have the trash picked up the next week. Compacting it all into a neat cube might be frowned on, not sure.
Personally, the best bang for our buck was a good sink garbarator. The kind that grind bones.
Thanks to that, and proper recycle sorting, our garbage output for a family of 5 adults is half a can of actual garbage weekly. 4 blue bins, and rarely, the compost bin.

Trash compactor - AKA: foot.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Phrank

I've been looking at getting a trash compactor.
...good for the environment...
The trash compactor is a tool that allows you to decrease the impact of your waste on landfills...

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Please don't. If you want to reduce your impact on the local landfill and be good to the environment,
I have three words...recycle, recycle, recycle. Trash compactors only provide a convenience for you,
not for the environment.

The thing is, with Municipal waste pick up, when your bundle arrives at the transfer station, it will be problematic for them when it is pre-compacted. It means that, inevitably, it will go nowhere BUT a landfill, whereas an uncompacted load would be sorted between landfill and incineration streams. You are not helping the environment one bit.
Far better off if you do things like crushing your aluminum cans, show diligence in recycling everything possible, and eliminating your use of plastics as much as possible. Oh, and do not buy bottled water.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Orville

The thing is, with Municipal waste pick up, when your bundle arrives at the transfer station, it will be problematic for them when it is pre-compacted. It means that, inevitably, it will go nowhere BUT a landfill, whereas an uncompacted load would be sorted between landfill and incineration streams. You are not helping the environment one bit.
Far better off if you do things like crushing your aluminum cans, show diligence in recycling everything possible, and eliminating your use of plastics as much as possible. Oh, and do not buy bottled water.

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That's excellent information - thanks, and from the rest of the responses here - this idea is officially off the table.

Seems from most of the stuff I read about them, they are an incredible PITA and end up smelling something awful.

I'll stick to my old routing of dancing on Pizza boxes and crushing can's.....;)

Phrank, I say get a compactor & crush away.
Life is too short to have wondered, what it could have been like. :beer2:

Ah yes, it is far better to have crushed away and lost than to have never crushed away at all.

Bob

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,:roflmao

remember the episode of Happy Days when Mr.Cunningham and The Fonz invented a trash compactor? if i remember correctly in malfunctioned during the demo for the potential buyers. Those things are scary.

While my area has curbside recycling I more than often give my aluminum cans to a friend whose son is disabled so he can have some extra funds. So I have no need of a 'Trash Compactor'.

I hope all will enjoy this bit about recycling;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtoeZ9Nkeqk