Car Crushed On the Street

Car crushers are compactors and can be of several types: one is a "pancake", where a scrap automobile is flattened by a huge descending hydraulically powered plate, or a baling press type, with which the automobile is compressed from several directions until it resembles a large cube.

The largest shredder in the world is used by Sturgis Iron & Metal of Elkhart, Indiana.

At least 95% of all vehicles are reclaimed, beating out newspaper, aluminum cans and even glass. After the crusher flattens a vehicle in a matter of seconds, it will go through a shredder. The shredded material then goes onto a conveyor belt where powerful magnets extract all the steel bits from the debris.