CAN-RAM Aluminum Can Crusher $17.50 from Conserv-a-Store

Yesterday I looked at the BigBelly trash compactor bin, here is another trash crushing device, the CAN-RAN, this time its priced for average people serious about their recycling and not just crushing beer cans in their hands to impress onlookers with how high their testosterone levels are.

You could use it to save space in your recycling bin by crushing used cans to a third of their normal size. If you are industrious you could bring the volumes of crushed cans to your handy aluminum scrap facility and they will reward in silver coin. Being green doesn’t stop you from being mean, so you could use it to piss off homeless people rooting through your bin for cans on recycle pick up days.

Seriously though, this could be handy for the family who uses way more aluminum cans than is good for them.

BigBelly Solar Trash Compactor from seahorsepower.com

Readers who regularly follow my posts here at Great Green Gadgets might wonder what’s up with no posts in the past several days. The reason is that my wife and I have been moving from our place in Boston to San Diego (where we will get to in a few weeks, right now we are starting a very slow journey across the country) Now that all the packing is done and the movers have taken away all our stuff we can turn our attention back to Great Green Gadgets.

Speaking of Boston – we lived in Jamaica Plain where a great green inventor,James Poss, also lives. He invented the BigBelly made by Seahorse Power Company which is a solar powered trash compactor bin that is becoming more popular in urban areas. Here is a good article from our Boston Globe on the BigBelly. and another more recent article from the BBC.

The BigBelly is becoming a welcome visitor to busy urban settings, popular beaches, and other areas that generate large volumes of trash from pedestrians that necessitate the garbage cans be emptied frequently so it doesn’t wind up looking like this picture.

The solar powered trash compactor might be emptied only once or twice a day, not the 15 or more visits by greenhouse gas emitting sanitation trucks seen in some downtown trash cans. Some as in this Treehugger post might object to the fact that all this trash is just being put in the landfill but realistically, that trash would have never made been recycled anyway in our current level of mass eco-consciousness. Perhaps someone could find a means to separate and then recycle the components of BigBelly’s compacted trash to make it even more eco-friendly. As a person commented on the Treehugger post, Perhaps a way could be found to convert the compacted garbage into fuel pellets for plasma arc gasification systems.

While its great to reduce trash and greenhouse gases with the BigBelly, bigger solutions to our cities’ trash woes will be needed, like ways to reduce the paper and plastic trash from convenience stores and fast-food restaurants as well as figuring out a way to educate and encourage people to take great pride and responsibility for our communities.