Shred of the Month - August 2006: Steel Drums

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August 2006 - Steel Drums

The Challenges

With the continuing growth in scrap metal values, more companies than ever are working hard to maximize recovery of ferrous and nonferrous metals from mixed/commingled materials. At the same time, high fuel costs and the light density of scrap metal, can make transportation and handling expensive and inefficient. SSI's low-speed, high-torque shredders facilitate scrap metal recovery and reduce transportation and handling costs at the same time.

The challenge with recycling scrap metal is that many times, the metal is comingled or mixed with other materials that have completely different properties. This is a challenge most shredding technologies cannot handle. Solid wastes, demolition debris, appliances, computers, and steel drums w/contents are good examples of materials that can pose a challenge for efficient scrap metal recovery.

The Solution

The versatility of SSI's low-speed, high-torque shredding technology solves the problem. By shredding bulky, commingled materials, metal is reduced in size and liberated from other contaminants, allowing a magnet or eddy current to effectively separate and recover it. This makes the recovered metals cleaner, less expensive to transport, and easier for a processor to convert into reusable material.

In this video, a steel drum filled with concrete is sheared by the shredder's 'close tolerance' rotary knives. The concrete is crushed by the impact of the hook on the large diameter, high torque cutter. As you can see, the metal and concrete are sized and separated from one another, making recovery of both materials much easier. The metal is denser, which will greatly improve handling and reduce transportation costs.