The invention regards a compacting machine for the separate collection of solid waste materials, specifically, of bulky plastic, metal and glass, such as throw away bottles and tins.

Compacting machines already exist: machines with which bulky waste materials produced by families, communities, restaurants etc. are crushed to allow for a higher quantity of material to be housed in the same machine thereby reducing the volume of the solid waste materials collected and allowing for a lower number of trips to the rubbish tip or recycling plant where the materials are then elaborated or destroyed.

Such compacting machines (including the ones produced by the title holder of this patent and registered as protocol numbers AR2000A00031 and AR2001A00021) are relatively complex, cumbersome and costly professional machines not suited to use at a family level.

One of the aims of the present invention is the realisation of a simple to make, low cost machine designed to compact bulky waste materials of the kind produced at domestic levels.

The second aim is that of producing a machine that is as uncumbersome as possible, so that it can easily be placed inside the house or on a terrace.

The third aim is that of making a machine that requires minimum handling in its production phase and that is however made with a minimum number of components thus resulting in a trustworthy, easy to clean machine which has minimum maintenance requirements and allows for the straight forward substitution of broken parts.

The invention that has allowed us to reach such results is a machine that constituted by a covered container on the inside of which there is a motor, a drive, a compacting ram activated by the above motor by way of the drive, at least one contrasting surface

against which the ram carries out the compacting of the waste materials and at least one container in which to collect the compacted waste materials.

Such an invention is particularly advantageous as it is structurally simple and so of low cost. It is also advantageous because the handling of the compactor is simplified, thus allowing for the container to be relatively uncumbersome.

It can operate as a crushing machine for more than one kind of product ; once crushed the deposited products are withdrawn from the internal container and appropriately divided into containers external to the machine, thus recycling according to material. Otherwise mobile containers can be built into the machine (one for each kind of material); the appropriate container for each product is positioned under the crushing chamber at the moment of recycling.

Finally, a ram that can crush materials at both ends or heads can also be accomodated, thus allowing for two different kinds of crushed materials to be collected separately, within two distinct containers built into the machine itself.

The following is a detailed description of the machine under discussion, aided by the exemplifying drawings which reproduce the preferred realizable model, that is, with the ram at both ends or with two crushing heads, in which: - Fig. 1 is the schematic representation of the machine under discussion with a double headed crushing ram and two built in containers for the collection of the compacted solid materials.; - Fig. 2 is the elevated front view of the machine represented in fig. 1; - Fig. 3 is the front view, on a different scale, of the internal structure of the machine in fig. 1; - Fig. 4 is the elevated side view of the machine in fig. 3.

It is understood that the drawings are of a purely exemplifying nature and aim aid the understanding of the invention, without constituting any kind of limitation to it.

The invention consists then in a machine for the compacting of bulky, solid materials 4 (for example glass bottles, plastic and/or metal bottles and containers), in which the compacting action is carried out by a ram 2, provided with two crushing heads 21, capable of running in alternative rectilinear motion from a resting position to two crushing positions.

The upper part of the above machine, adapted as a parallelpipedal similar to any common household appliance, comprises the crushing chamber 10, whilst the lower part houses the chamber 20 where the crushed or shattered materials are collected. In chamber 20, one or more containers 5 can be housed, normally extractable, for the internal separation of the crushed materials 6.

The front part of the machine has an activation and control panel 7, at least one hole 8 into which the products to be crushed 4 are introduced and an openable door 9, through which it is possible to access chamber 20 where the crushed or shattered products are collected.

In the preferred tecnical solution, exemplified in the drawings, the machine is predisposed for the collection of two different kinds of materials, for example, on one side glass bottles and on the other containers or bottles in plastic or glass.

In this solution, therefore, the machine has two holes 8 for introducing the different products and, in the collecting chamber 20, two separate containers 5.

The crushing chamber 10, within which the workings of the machine are housed, accomodates one motor 1, the compactors 2 capable of alternative rectilinear motion activated by the motor 1, the contrasting surfaces 3, against which the solid waste products are compressed, with each contrasting surface 3 combining an opening 12 through which the crushed or shattered products fall to reach the container below 5.

In the preferred realizable solution reproduced in the drawings, the motor is made up of an electric motor reducer, connected to the compactors 2 by a gear drive 13. It needs to be said that the output shaft 14 of the electric motor reducer 1 has two

sprocket wheels, each coupled with a rack 15, anchored to and so integral with the compactors which are thus made to move.

The inversion of the rotatory motion of the shaft 14 of the motor reducer 1 thus determines the inversion of the sliding direction of the compactors.

The compactors are constituted by a ram provided with at least one crushing head 21 when the products to be compacted 4 are always crushed at the same point and then later separated into external containers 5 that are positioned under the crushing point according to the product 4 that is to be collected.

In the solution exemplified the compactors 2 are constituted by a ram with two opposing crushing heads, so that crushing can take place at both ends. In this case it is possible to have two different kinds of compacted material, for example on one side glass and on the other plastic or metal.

The contrasting surfaces against which the products to be compacted are pressed are normally constituted by a strong surface facing the crushing heads of the compactors.

The surface 3 can be smooth or it can have ribbings and bulges to concentrate the compaction stress and to facilitate, at the same power as the motor 1, the breaking of the product 4 to be crushed and so being advantageous for the breaking and crushing of glass bottles.

The place where the product that is to be crushed is pushed in by hand, corrisponding to each insertion hole 8 for the products that are to be compacted, is delimited on a first vertical side by the resistent surface of the contrasting mediums 3, on the vertical side faced by the crushing surface of the compactors, whereas the base is partially delimited by the means of support and restraint 23 for the product that is to be crushed 4. This base, behind the resistent contrasting surface 3, is open, that is, it includes the opening 12 through which the crushed product falls by force of gravity once the crushing action has finished, to be collected in the container below 5.

In the solution exemplified in the drawings, the crushing point for glass bottles, opening 12, is proportioned to allow for the passage of glass of predetermined size, while the crushing point for plastic and/or metal bottles or tins can have an opening 12 much more contained in size since it must allow for the passage of the crushed product 6 which is assimilable to the size of"the sole of a shoe".

In an alternative solution to the one reproduced in the drawings, the motor 1 can be constituted by a group of fluid dynamics with jack, to whose threads the compactors 2 will be connected, substituted by driver bearings 16.

In the production phase variations are however possible to the components housed in the compacting chamber 10, and in any case are within the protection limits of the following rights.