What's the Difference Between Plastic Shredder and Crusher in Plastic Recycling Industry?

What's the Difference Between Plastic Shredder and Crusher in Plastic Recycling Industry?

Both of plastic shredders and crushers are widely used in the field of plastic waste recycling. However, they have significant differences. This article will show you the main differences between these two types of equipment in the following aspects: working principles, applications, processing capabilities, usage effects, and maintenance.

1. Working principles,

Plastic shredder: It mainly uses the principle of shearing and tearing to get large and rigid or irregular plastic waste items into smaller pieces. It is usually equipped with sharp blades or teeth, which deal with materials through high-speed rotation or reciprocating movement.

While Crusher: when processing plastic lumps or purge materials generated from extruder, it is usually used in conjunction with a shredder and is placed behind the shredder. When used alone in the production line, it is mainly used to crush various common bottles found in daily life, such as PET bottles and HDPE containers, etc. It mainly uses the high-speed rotating blades to cut the materials thrown into the chamber into small plastic flakes.

2. Applications,

Plastic shredder: It is more commonly used to process large, heavy or difficult-to-break plastic waste, such as used furniture, plastic barrels, metal drums, large plastic packaging, etc.

Plastic crusher: It is more commonly used to process smaller and thinner plastic waste, such as plastic bottles, plastic films, plastic pipes, etc.

3. Processing capabilities,

Plastic shredder: Because it mainly handles large materials, its processing capacity is relatively large and it can handle larger-sized plastic waste.
Plastic crusher: Because it handles smaller materials, its processing capacity is relatively small, but its crushing efficiency is high, and it is suitable for processing a large amount of small plastic waste.

4. Effect of use,

Plastic shredder: The size of the shredded materials is relatively large and the degree of fragmentation is low, but it is more conducive to subsequent crushing or reuse.
Plastic crusher: The crushed materials are smaller in size and have a higher degree of crushing, and can be directly used in the production of recycled particles or other reuse areas.

5. Maintenance,

Plastic shredder: Because it handles larger materials, the blades wear faster, so the blades need to be checked for wear regularly and replaced in time. In addition, the cleaning of the shredder is also very important to avoid clogging of the machine due to material residue.
Plastic Crusher: Although the blades wear out slowly, they do require regular inspection. At the same time, the crusher needs to be cleaned regularly to keep the crushing cavity and cutters clean and prevent material residue and blockage.
To sum up, there are obvious differences between plastic shredders and plastic crushers in terms of working principles, applications, processing capabilities, usage effects, and maintenance. When selecting for use, appropriate equipment should be selected based on specific needs and characteristics of the materials being processed.