When asked what is the most important piece of equipment on their site, most landfill managers will say their refuse compactor. But what features should you look for when selecting a new refuse compactor? Which machine will offer the best air space utilization?

Which is most cost effective to own and maintain? There are no easy answers. Site managers must find the proper balance between a number of features to ensure an optimum match between machine performance and landfill requirements.

Refuse compactors come in several sizes and weights, from 50,000-pound class units to 120,000-pound machines. Though the common thought is that bigger must be better, that is not always the case. To find the appropriate machine size to maximize return on investment, site managers must relate machine size to the landfill’s daily tonnage or tons per day (tpd) and the delivery rate during the site’s peak hours.

Many smaller sites - 300 tpd or less - often make the mistake of only considering machines in the 50,000- to 60,000-pound weight class. Their error lies in the simple fact that, in most cases, trash does not flow into a landfill at a steady rate throughout a given day.

In reality, most landfills experience two peak hours of delivery each day - one in the morning and one in the afternoon. For a 300-tpd site, approximately half of the landfill’s daily tonnage (about 150 tons) will be delivered during these two peak hours, and a machine in the 50,000- to 60,000-pound weight class is too small to correctly spread, place and compact trash delivered at this rate. Therefore, small landfills should consider machines in the 70,000- to 80,000-pound class. Machines of this size can extend a small landfill’s life far beyond initial projections.

Compactors in the 70,000- to 80,000-pound class are also typically the optimum size machines for most mid- to large-sized landfills running multiple machines. Machines of this size, used in multiples, can handle even the largest volume sites.

On larger, high volume sites, which experience daily deliveries of 1,000 tons or above, a compactor in the 100,000+ pound class is needed to properly put away the trash that arrives each day.