Reader Merilee sent me a link to this video, and the machine is flipping amazing—it grinds up whole cars into fragments, glass, wheels, and engines. Be sure to watch toward the end when the Beast pulverizes a bunch of engine blocks. I don’t know how the Red Giant does it, but the YouTube video comes with this information in Polish (translations welcome):
W polsce przydałaby się taka do mielenia źle zaparkowanych samochodów
Seems to translate like “we could use this in Poland to grind up badly parked cars” (an understandable comment, at least if it’s coming from Warsaw)
It seems to be manufactured, or at least markets by a New York-based company called Hammell. It doesn’t shred tyres since they ‘stretch too much and gum up the machine’.
From their website it seems that one could by a used one!
Crrrrrrruunnnncchh
I don’t know why but looking at this video somehow reminds me of the comedian Gallagher with the sledge o matic…..
“removes unwanted fingerprints from walls
and unwanted walls from fingerprints”
Gallagher would probably say that you could use this Red Giant in the kitchen it’s slices it dices, and makes all the coleslaw you ever could want..
It is a very brutal looking machine I wonder how long those blades last?
Don’t get your tie or ponytail caught in that one!
Now I want one made waste disposal size, so I can put bones in. 🙂
If Steve Buschmi had had. One of those in Fargo instead of a woodchipper he might have gotten away.
Yeah, I immediately thought of Fargo, too:-)
That’s what I’m sure the (female) friend who sent it to me was thinking as well.
One of the basic cable ‘science’ channels, I do not remember which, had a recent series about giant grinders like these and the guys who run ‘n maintain them. It was actually rather fascinating. The machines are very expensive. Parts are hard to get and they are always breaking and just plain wearing down. The people who run them have to be very technically skilled in managing and troubleshooting really big, strong machines where the slightest slip will be very expensive or dangerous.
My wife says it’s called “Extreme Shredders”
Yes, that was it. Thanks.
“Extreme Shredder” sounds like a Ninja Turtle action figure.
Or a certain group of guitarists.
I want to see the machine that eats the worn-down Red Giants.
I just hope when it’s my car’s turn I’m not in it.
Simply smashing!
With my luck I’ll be in the trunk.
(but then NBC News Brian Williams can say he saved me)
(Just a little joke—-I like his news cast and him for years and will watch nbc news )
–any one else have a thought?)
But if I need a car crushed I will be calling the red giant.
Om wroom nom nom!
“I don’t know how the Red Giant does it…”
Lot’s of torque and components with a Mohs hardness much greater than the pieces it eats is my guess.
I found myself wondering about the dust that was generated, health-wise. And for that matter, is there a chance that the rubble itself might contain problematic substances?
But–a kick to watch! 😉
Yes the dust coming of of that would be nasty. I imagine if one were operated in California – at least on the areas with air quality management like San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Los Angeles – that would have to be contained. Depending on particle size, the paint and plastic would be especially problematic – and the heat that is generated is likely releasing nasty invisible volatiles as well.
Thanks for the elaboration.
I almost expected the thing to belch…
I’m imagining the Batman episode to beat all Batman episodes…
IIRC, if they don’t strip the car of the copper wiring harness before compacting them since it makes it hard to re-refine the steel, which is contaminated by copper. Is that not an issue with shredding since they can use giant magnets to pull the steel out?
What do they do with the shredded cars?
As impressive as that machine is, I can’t help but think that it’s a symptom of excessively decadent waste.
Much better for the cars to be built to last forever in the first place, including such that they’re amenable to repair and overhaul and upgrade and salvage as parts. Superficially, the car that got shredded looked fine; no major body damage, no obvious signs of rust or other decay. I think the world would be a better place if something like that were still on the road.
b&
Believe the motto is – we build everything to wear out, that’s job security. Auto industry was the first to change styles every year. Now the same in electronics of all kinds nearly every year – new phones, new TVs, new computers and on and on.
That’s side of the coin.
The other side is that people who buy stuff that lasts are much wealthier than those who’re always spending money on disposable shit.
This whole recurring monthly payment nonsense…I’ve managed, through a lot of hard work, to escape almost all of them. I’m basically left with health insurance, telephone / Internet, car insurance, and municipal utilities. The mortgage is paid off. The roof is covered in solar panels. Both cars are older than I am and paid off. No debt, no finance charges to pay on that debt…and all the money that I would have spent on those sorts of things instead either goes to savings or to stuff I actually want to spend money on.
b&
such as good food for you and Baihu;-)
Yes. And, the great thing about that, is that even that doesn’t cost all that much….
b&
More recent cars are much much better than older cars. Having a car forever, would condemn us to out of date technology. Cars are designed as a whole, so while upgradability sounds good, it is not really practical.
Plus, the dynamics of the car industry has provided a great economic boon to many people.
Reasonable recycling is the best option.
A new car may be better than an old one, but at what cost? And that we’re paying each other to make and crush cars is just the Broken Window Fallacy.
b&
Vance Packard went over this in “The Waste Makers” in 1960.
My first washing machine lasted 23 years. My second, a Fisher & Paykell MW512, could play “The Star-spangled Banner”, “Advance Australia Fair” and “God Defend New Zealand”, and lasted 10 years. My third, due on Thursday, is a Fisher & Paykell MW513. This is progress?
It is not the broken window fallacy.
We are talking about an item far more complex than a window. No matter how a car is made it cannot be made to last for ever.
Apart from my argument that it is desirable to have ongoing development to improve the product it would not have been possible years ago and not even now.
Cars are much safer and reliable and comfortable now so many developments have occurred that I can’t mention them all.
Cars actually last a lot longer now than they did, much longer and hardly ever break down.
They do degrade for other reasons, mechanical, environmental and human.
The car and its development has been part of our culture, a positive part and they are significantly better, and cheaper.
At what cost I don’t know, some cost of course but it is not simply a ‘make and crush’ process.
I would much prefer my modern computer controlled vehicle with fuel injection, air bags, pre tensioning seat belts, radial tyres, air conditioning, active stability controlled suspension, crumple zones in the body, much better economy and emissions to some old metal smoke blowing bad handling death machine that constantly needs the auto club assistance as it just broke down again, you favor.
Eh, I think you just made my point. Most of what you list either has been or soon will be retrofitted to my new-to-me 1964 1/2 Ford Mustang, if it didn’t already have it.
I’ll give you the crumple zones, but the rest? If you’ve got an older car and you want it, add it.
b&
The ad that came with the car eating video was insulting. Something about atheists being thrilled with revelations in the freaking bible.
What is this “ad” conception of which you write? Sounds horrid. Why should you subject yourself to such a thing?
b&
sub
I agree with Ben that it seems that a lot of our technology helps us waste things more quickly and “efficiently”. Although I applaud recycling, in any form, many of these cars could have gone through the “re-use” (for parts) phase first. Although machines like this have revolutionized the car reclamation industry, I’m automatically a little suspicious of anything that makes it just a little bit too easy to NOT put time and effort into re-use, which makes more jobs and saves more energy in the long run.
Demolition contractors love “Track-Hoes”, and the other fancy machines they have: you can completely demolish a full-sized house in a few hours with one, but thousands of dollar’s worth of re-used building materials go to waste except for the large metal items that can be easily pulled out. Gotta hurry, ya’ know? Gotta get that new bank (condo, fast-food restaurant) built NOW!
WARNING!
NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH, OR ANIMAL LOVERS:
They use shredders like this one in slaughterhouses and on farms, too, for carcasses unfit for consumption- here’s a video of one in action on various different dead animals-
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=faa_1334605690
Your point? While visually disturbing, evidently the ground up cow may be used in products like dog food. That’s a reasonable outcome it seems to me as compared to letting it rot in a field. Consider the 400,000,000 animals killed by cars on America’s highways each year. Horrible way to go and for what? No good reason at all.
I wasn’t trying to just “gross people out”, but to show some of the other applications of these machines; in this case, a somewhat morbid one, but I agree that it appears better than just letting the animal rot (and where would that happen?). However the addition of animal “by-products” (the term, “by-products” is a sanitized one; the video shows one way they get them) in feed from sheep infected with scrapie led to the “mad cow” epidemic in the U.K. and several human cases of the human variant. It’s not always a good thing to save everything!
Back in the eighties, I was working on a tree planting crew in Arkansas and came upon a county “dump” (at that time, just a pit bulldozed in the ground out in the woods). It was filled with turkey carcasses from some disaster at a local farm- the smell was incredible, and the action of the maggots had all the feathers on the turkeys wiggling back and forth.Now, THAT was gross!
Prion transmission can probably be avoided by not feeding mammal ‘by-products’ to normally herbivorous mammals. Open up the recycling loop by including one or (for more safety, bearing in mind gut contents) two other animals that don’t have prion proteins, like fish or insects (as far as I know?). Or take a leaf from the book of Native American tradition and plant a bit of byproduct under the corn, beans and squash.
Will NOT be watching that video, thank you very much.
Miraculous. God be praised.
The only thing that I can think of is “Omnomnomnom”
The remains will likely be sent to recycling. It’s easier for them to handle fragments than things like engine blocks, etc.