I have been looking for an electric can crusher

I have been looking for an electric can crusher so that I can crush my aluminum cans and store them for recycling. Do you have any idea who makes one?

—Jon Marshall, via email

As far as we can tell, there are no consumer-marketed electric can crushers. But that’s no tragedy. Why waste fossil fuel-generated electricity when human power will do the job just fine? One of the most practical models we’ve seen is the MultiCrush Can Compactor available for $23 from Planet Natural. The all-steel unit stacks up to six cans, and then feeds them automatically into the much-feared (if you’re a can) crushing chamber. Put your recycling bin underneath, and the flattened cans fall right in.

If you’re planning on a lot of crushing, consider the Barco Aluminum Can Crusher, available from Berlyn Enterprises for $60. The crushing device on this model, which is made of high-density polyethylene, is attached to a trash bin that holds up to 400 crushed cans.

Still not satisfied with these low-tech solutions? You can always contact the Plasma Dynamics Laboratory at New York’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), which has, for its own whimsical purposes, invented an industrial-size can crusher that uses electricity to create a powerful magnetic field capable of reducing aluminum cans to a heap of compacted metal. You can visit RPI’s Can Crusher home page (http://hibp.ecse.rpi.edu/Can_Crusher/home.html) for a demonstration.

Whichever method you choose, recycling your empty cans makes good environmental sense. “The aluminum can is the most valuable and most recycled beverage container,” says Jenny Day, director of recycling at the Can Manufacturers Institute. Day says that the aluminum industry paid $800 million last year to reclaim cans. Recycling eight six packs saves the energy equivalent of one gallon of gas, and the energy saved by recycling just one empty can is enough to power a television for three hours.

CONTACTS: Planet Natural, 1612 Gold Avenue, Bozeman, MT 59715, (800) 289-6656, www.planetnatural.com, info@planetnatural.com; Berlyn Enterprises, LLC7333, 2060-D Ave de Los Arboles #220, Thousand Oaks, CA 91362-1361, (888) 404-7750, www.berlynenterprises.com, info@berlynenterprises.com; Can Manufacturers Institute, 1730 Rhode Island Avenue NW, Suite 1000, Washington DC 20036, (202) 232-4677, www.cancentral.com.