Plastic Crate Shredder Machine for Broken Crates, Shells & Pallets

A plastic shredder cuts bulky plastic waste into small pieces that are easier to store, transport, sell or reprocess. Plants use one to recover the polymer from their own scrap, to make loose waste worth a recycler’s freight, and to destroy branded or rejected goods so they cannot be reused or resold. On crates it does all three: a dual shaft shredder tears retired crates, bottle shells and pallet sections into coarse shred that nobody can put back into circulation, and an RE-series grinder turns that shred into uniform flake that moulders buy.

Yes, through an industrial plastic shredder built for it, not an office paper shredder. Rigid plastic such as crates, bottle shells and drums suits a dual shaft shredder, which grips and tears at low speed, and solid, thick pieces suit the slow single shaft S3-600. Three checks before you feed. Take the metal out (steel reinforcement bars in heavy-duty pallets, strapping, nails), because metal in the cutting chamber breaks blades on any shredder. Cut oversized pallets into sections that fit the feed opening. Keep polymers and colours apart if you want to sell clean regrind. If you are unsure what is inside your pallets, send us the pallet type with your enquiry, or book a trial and we will assess one together.

Largely yes. Crates are injection-moulded from PP or HDPE (single-polymer, well-identified material) so the regrind from a shredded crate is among the most reusable plastic scrap there is. Moulders blend crate regrind with virgin granule when moulding new crates and other industrial products. The exact blend ratio is the moulder’s call based on the application. Because the material’s history is known (your own fleet), it commands better prices than mixed-origin scrap. Many crate suppliers will buy regrind back against new crate orders. Ask yours.

Because whole branded crates rarely die in a scrap yard. They get repaired, repainted and re-enter circulation carrying your branding, which is exactly how grey-market crate fleets are built. Dairies and breweries lose real money to this. Shredding before the material leaves your premises guarantees destruction, and ground PP/HDPE typically sells for more per kilogram than whole-crate scrap anyway, because the buyer skips a processing step. You also get a clean paper trail for EPR and asset write-off purposes.

Work from weight, not crate count: weigh one retired crate, multiply by the number you retire each month, and spread that over your planned shredding hours. For many dairies and bottlers crate retirement is a batch job, so a dual shaft machine sized to clear the backlog in a few days then handles the trickle easily. Recyclers buying crate scrap continuously from many sources usually step up to the S3-600, rated at 300–500 kg/hr. Our machine selection guide covers the sizing arithmetic.

The dual shaft stage produces a coarse, uneven shred, ideal for volume reduction and destruction, and saleable as it is to reprocessors who do their own grinding. If you want uniform flake, add an RE-series grinder: its screen sets the flake size, 12–15 mm as standard or as per your requirement. Decide based on what your buyer pays for: coarse shred moves fast, uniform flake earns more.

Every machine is quoted to the job. What decides the price is the model and its capacity, the material (PP or HDPE crates, shells, pallets or mixed lots), the motor rating, MS or SS construction, options such as a blower on the grinder, and how you want to feed the machine and take the shred away. Our plastic shredding machine price guide walks through each of those. Send us what you retire each month and we will size the machine and quote it.

We quote every machine to the job rather than publish a price list, because a bottle scrap machine is priced by what it has to do. What decides it is the model and its capacity, the bottle sizes and material (PET or HDPE), the motor rating, options such as a cyclone blower that carries light flake into bags, and how you want to feed the machine and take the output away. Empty bottles usually go straight to a grinder: our plastic bottle recycling machine page sets out the models we recommend. Send us your bottle type and daily volume and we will quote.