Although 55 gallon drums are one of the most versatile and useful storage mediums that are available for the industrial environment, there comes a time when they reach the end of their useful life, and their size and bulk actually becomes a major disadvantage when it comes to disposal, and it is necessary to make them smaller in order to process them for recycling or disposal depending on what their contents were. A specially designed single drum compactor is an extremely useful and cost saving piece of equipment that will soon pay for itself in terms of reducing the cost of material disposal through a third party company,

Size of drum after being compacted by drum compactorThe bulk of a standard 55 gallon oil drum means that very few can be carried in a truck for disposal off site, so by using a single drum crusher/compactor it is possible to reduce the volume of the drums by a massive amount, and allow for more to be stored on a truck and disposed of or recycled as appropriate.

Most companies offer an extremely efficient and hard wearing drum compactor system, which can crush a standard 55 gallon drum down to just 6 inches in height, and reset itself to be ready for another drum in just 25 seconds from start to finish. This means that you will be able to ensure the fastest possible disposal of used drums.

The specifications of the HDC-900-IDC 55 gallon drum compactor-crusher make for impressive reading. The unit uses a standard power supply to generate an impressive 38,000 pound crushing force ? enough to completely flatten regular metal drums in a matter of seconds. The unit has been designed with efficiency in mind, and one of its most innovative features is the built in piercer, which ensures that the drum vents properly, and prevents the occasional explosion from damaging the machine.

One of the most impressive things about the drum compactor is that it not only crushes the drum, but it can also be used in order to compress items within the drum. If you are using 55 gallon drums for waste disposal, and want to be able to fit the maximum amount of waste into each one, simply put the laden drum with no top into the compactor with the crushing plate removed, and the piston will drive down onto the contents of the drum, and crush them down into a much smaller volume without damaging the outside of the drum in the slightest.

With the enormous power offered by this system, safety needs to be a paramount concern for operators, and there are a number of areas in which the drum compactor will protect staff Firstly, the unit will not operate with the door open, secondly, there is an emergency cut off switch that immediately stops the piston from crushing a drum in an emergency. This means that in an emergency, such as when an item that should not be crushed finds its way into the drum compactor, the operator can take emergency action. The locking door means that once the crusher has started in operation nothing can be pushed into the unit and put at risk.