A smashing end for Cabrillo Marine Aquarium's Octobus cargo van

It was a smashing farewell to “Octobus” on Friday when the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium delivered its 2003 Chevy cargo van — red-tagged after logging 120,000 miles — to SA Recycling at the Port of Los Angeles. The educational outreach van, carrying saltwater tanks and sea creatures, was visited by an estimated 130,000 schoolchildren as an aquarium-on-wheels.

• VIDEO: Watch the step-by-step smashing of Octobus

SA Recycling, one of the nation’s largest scrap recyclers, put the van through a massive macerator that ripped it into shreds and then smashed and sorted the materials. Softball-shaped chunks of metal will be part of the display at the aquarium’s Earth Day Fair from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.

• PHOTOS: See the Octobus reduced to fragments

The Friends of Cabrillo Aquarium, a nonprofit support group for the city-owned aquarium in San Pedro, will raise funds to purchase two new vans, one to replace Octobus and the other to replace the facility’s rapidly aging Crab Cab.

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