In a typical shredding operation, cars are delivered with the wheels off, battery out and they are supposed to remove the gas tank, but I've seen enough explosions to know some don't, the rig is built sturdy enough to handle that. There are big blowers to separate the upholstery/foam, magnets to pick up the ferrous metal (some stainless is ferrous and some is not), but I'm not sure how they separate the plastic, copper, and aluminum because that's done offsite.
Goldfinger used a compactor, not a shredder.

well, it comes out in a stream of chunks/shreds/bits and the ferrous material can easily be sorted out magnetically. That's one stream. The rest, there are other sorting methods, air blowers, by density, etc, etc.

hashtag tailposter
hashtag unfortunatepagebreak

Eh, it happens. :blunt:

This machine I've been up close and personal with several times. Custom built and flawless.
I haven't seen it with that pickup aboard which has a color I despise. :vomitblu:

Thank you, Gentlemen. All is clear now.
I was labouring under a misapprehension. :thumb:

Eddy picks out the non-ferrous metals.
Hit them with an alternating magnetic field and Eddy currents are generated in the metal which in turn generates an opposing magnetic field and they are repelled. They can be just rolling down a conveyor and when they reach the magnet they fly off into a bin at the side.
Not sure if you can then sort Aluminum from Copper with a refinement of this technique.

Ah, thanks beest. :thumb:
Much of the copper salvaged would be wire with a plastic coating, I guess that would be burned off, probably too expensive using chemicals to dissolve the plastic because of the cost of waste disposal.

I believe it is illegal to burn off the plastic/vinyl here in good ol' KY.

I think it had to do with copper theft somehow.

My buddy's father used to burn the insulation off copper wire in a wood stove he had in his garden shed. This was a densely populated middle class neighborhood, and the smoke coming out of the stack was not only scary looking, you could smell it blocks away.

The commercial trash to steam plant that burns all the county trash, burns a shitload of plastic but it's not a problem because they have a tall stack so it all blows over to Jersey. :haha:

Here's another cool machine all set up to show.

..and today
http://blogsdir.cms.rrcdn.com/91/fil...-Vehicle-1.jpg

https://www.tradeearthmovers.com.au/...at-minexpo2016

Mines are big places with not a lot of people meandering about, stoplights, or cross-traffic, so an interesting starting application for driverless vehicles.

I saw that coming, the mine's closed course is the logical application for autonomous vehicles.

plus, you can put another boulder where the cab used to be

A modernized tanker, see the low profile tires. :haha: