The Plymouth County landfill's new trash compactor can pack more than double the garbage into the same space compared to the old compactor, which was sold. [Click to enlarge]

It can pulverize more than half a ton of garbage and squeeze it into the size of two suitcases.

And the new garbage compactor at the Plymouth County landfill will add around 15 years of life to the dump.

That's according to Mark Kunkel, the landfill manager.

"The projected life of the landfill was 36 years, now we'll add at least 15 years to that," he said.

Kunkel spent Tuesday morning driving the 86,000 pound machine back and forth over the county's garbage heap, and he was pleased with the results.

So was Rick Bohle, chairman of the landfill board.

"We had this whole pile completely compacted with our old machine, and we ran it over again with this new compactor and it dropped about a foot," he said.

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"And those were areas we packed yesterday six times with the old compactor," Kunkel said.

The old compactor, which had about 20 years on it, could squeeze about 600 pounds of garbage into a cubic yard.

This Advantage 500 can easily double that, squeezing 12,000 to 14,000 pounds into the same area.

Landfill workers use the compactor daily in the warmer months to flatten garbage piles, and several times a week in the winter, Kunkel explained

The new machine cost $467,000, and the landfill will be paying off the debt as part of its budget for 10 years. Still, Kunkel said the purchase was more than worth it.

"I'm sure it's going to add at least 15 years of life to this landfill -- and that's an income to the landfill of about $1.8 million," he said.

The machine, built in Iowa by Al-Jon, an Ottumwa-based recycling and compacting company, has giant spiked wheels, a 500 horsepower John Deere engine and is capable of moving 20 cubic yards of waste at one time. If you do the math, that adds up to more than 240,000 pounds. Or 24 full-grown elephants.

"Our other machine only weighed 36,000 pounds and had a 130 horsepower engine, so this is quite a changeup," Bohle said.

He, Kunkel and a few others were measuring the progress of the compactor on the garbage level with a construction laser.

"It's all about space," he said. "Once the space at a landfill is full, it's done."