Recycling apparatus for disintegrating discarded containers
First Claim
1. Apparatus for cutting and breaking empty containers into small pieces of material comprising:
- means including a wall defining a vertical open-ended tapered chamber having sloping sidewalls wider at the top than at the bottom and having a plurality of vertically and horizontally spaced slots disposed in said wall communicating with said chamber;
cutting blade means comprising a plurality of rotatable blade edge portions disposed on an axis substantially parallel with said sloping sidewalls and extending through said slots into said chamber for engagement with a container therein; and
means to effect rotational movement of said blade edge portions to effect cutting and breaking of a container engaged therewith into small pieces of material.
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Accused Products
Abstract
An apparatus, suitable for household use, for cutting and breaking empty discarded frangible containers into small pieces of material to facilitate subsequent processing and recycling of those materials. The apparatus includes a manually operable loading bin for dumping containers (glass or plastic bottles and jars, metal cans, small cardboard boxes, etc.) into the wide upper inlet opening of a conical chamber. Motor-driven rotatable circular cutting blades, having sharp edges which project into the chamber through slots in the chamber wall, cut and break the containers descending through the chamber into small pieces of material (glass, plastic, metal, cardboard, etc.). The pieces exit the narrow lower outlet opening of the chamber into a selected one of several compartments in an adjustably positionable carousel below the outlet opening. The slots (and blade edges projecting therethrough) are arranged in three radially spaced apart vertical columns around the chamber wall. The slots in each column are vertically spaced apart. The cuttingh blades in each column are rigidly mounted in vertically spaced apart, eccentric relationship on a drive shaft mounted exteriorly of the chamber. One shaft is motor driven and drives the other two shafts through a pinion/ring gear mechanism. Containers descending through the chamber are squeezed, scored, cut and broken between the sharp edges of the cutting blades and the opposing cutting blades or opposing wall surfaces.
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Citations
9 Claims
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1. Apparatus for cutting and breaking empty containers into small pieces of material comprising:
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means including a wall defining a vertical open-ended tapered chamber having sloping sidewalls wider at the top than at the bottom and having a plurality of vertically and horizontally spaced slots disposed in said wall communicating with said chamber; cutting blade means comprising a plurality of rotatable blade edge portions disposed on an axis substantially parallel with said sloping sidewalls and extending through said slots into said chamber for engagement with a container therein; and means to effect rotational movement of said blade edge portions to effect cutting and breaking of a container engaged therewith into small pieces of material. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4)
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5. Apparatus for cutting and breaking empty containers into small pieces of material comprising:
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means defining a chamber which tapers downwardly from a large upper inlet opening to a small lower outlet opening; said chamber having a wall surface provided with a plurality of slots communicating with said chamber; said slots being arranged in radially spaced apart columns and the slots in each column being vertically spaced apart from one another; a plurality of rotatable cutting blades each having a cutting edge portion projecting through a slot into said chamber and being rotatable in a plane transverse to said wall surface; and means to effect rotation of said cutting blades so that a container descending through said chamber can be engaged, scored, cut and broken into small pieces of material between opposing cutting blade edges and between cutting blade edges and opposing side wall surfaces. - View Dependent Claims (6, 7, 8, 9)
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Specification