Rotopress

The Rotopress is a European waste collection vehicle manufactured by the German company Faun GmbH.

Originally a French design, later interpreted by a British company known as Laird Engineering Ltd, the Rotopress is a continuously compacting garbage truck, meaning that the compacting process carries on uninterrupted, with no user intervention required from the operators, who simply have to load the vehicle.

The Rotopress is unique in terms of its rotary action, which uses a massive rotating drum to compact and store the garbage. The outer edge of the drum acts as the loading hopper, and paddles on the drum convey the waste around an auger of decreasing pitch until it is small enough to be forced through a small ring-shaped gap between the drum and the auger, where it then enters the main section of the drum, which has helically shaped internal paddles which move the now-crushed waste towards the front of the vehicle.

The Laird version of the vehicle was known as the "Shark" and was so-named due to the serrated loading auger which was designed to tear up garbage sacks and other large soft items as they were dragged into the drum.