Looking for a small portable crusher to deal with smaller amounts of drywall
I don’t think you can compress sheetrock very much. It consists of gypsum powder (i.e. rock) and thick paper. Both of these are very dense materials and neither is easily compressible…
Perhaps the OP meant crush as in pulverise. Broken pieces of drywall probably don’t pack as well as crushed gypsum.
Gypsum is very useful for breaking up hard clay soils. Not sure of the composition of drywall but it may be good to simply pulverize then return to soil.
Yeah, look for a farmer. Lots of them recycle it into soil that needs the addition. Round here they don’t care if it’s broken up or pulverized!
A small garden shreader should do the trick.
I recycle drywall. It would be hard on a garden shredder. But for small amounts it might work. One issue is the dust it makes is intense. Air filters on engines quickly fill with the dust.
I received a Google Alert off the keyword Drywall that lead me to this site in case your wondering where I came from.
Here is a link to a story of how I recycle drywall.
Putting un-crushed drywall in fields makes a mess. Rain will release the paper backing and the results will be paper blowing all over in the wind, I know… I tried it and spent a week picking up paper from my neighbors fields.
Exactly. Also transporting broken pieces from their origin, say 20 floors up an office tower, to their destination which could be a recognized recycling facility if available, is mucher harder and has more contingencies to account for. I submit ; if it was crushed or pulverized enough to compact into elevator friendly sized containers on large diameter casters, would be more efficient at getting it to same destination. So a unit that could get up same elevator is the idea.
Thanks
Solid-ish cylinders of the stuff would be wicked heavy. One regular sheet weighs, IIRC, about 75 pounds.
I would much rather deal with large pieces that individually weigh less than 40 pounds than several hundred pounds of the stuff pulverized into dust. As noted above, you can’t really compact it. If anything, grinding it would be less efficient as it won’t be as dense as breaking it into small bits would add empty space.
Trust me, if grinding up drywall was somehow beneficial to demolition work, someone would be doing it now.
I put half a sheet of drywall out in the yard behind my shed for a couple of months of rain and weather, and it melted; just collapsed into fragile little chalky lumps, easily disposed of.