Balers

IQS Newsroom Articles on Balers

About Balers Including: Bailers, Baling Presses, Cardboard Balers, Compactors, Drum Crushers, Horizontal Balers, Industrial Balers, Industrial Compactors, Metal Balers, Trash Compactors, Used Balers & Vertical Balers.

Balers are used to compress and bind materials, usually industrial, retail or consumer waste or byproducts, for shipping or recycling. Compactors, very similar to bailers, specialize in compressing waste materials in order to reduce waste material size for more efficient transportation. Industrial balers manufacturers often produce drum crushers, balers and industrial compactors, trash compactors, baler-compactor combos, sorting stations and conveyor systems into complete turn-key recycling or composting systems. Balers with heavy compacting capabilities are sometimes called baling presses, or presses. Round balers are typically used for baling agricultural products such as hay or wheat. Since balers usually deal with large volumes, they usually have a large input area either on the side or top. The input area leads to a chamber where the material is pounded, smashed or squeezed into a compact size and then bound. Wire, plastic or string is often used in the binding. Balers can press and bind virtually any material, particularly waste such as garbage, plastic, metal scraps, paper, scrap cloth and agricultural products. Cardboard balers are used commonly in retail, consumer and manufacturing industries to minimize cardboard waste size for storage and transportation. Specialized baling and compacting equipment is also available for the extraction of oils and liquids from material. Since balers exhibit such long lifespans, they are often refurbished and sold used.

 
Balers and compactors come in two basic styles: vertical and horizontal. These describe the way the material travels through the machine as well as to the way the material is loaded into the machine. Horizontal balers take up more floor space than vertical balers, but they have the advantage of greater load capacity and more automated functions. Vertical balers often are single load machines and need to be manually unloaded when the compacting and baling is complete. Vertical balers are used in smaller facilities that produce less waste and often deal with scrap that is lighter in density and volume. The automotive or packaging industries will often utilize larger horizontal balers and compactors to make the removal and transportation of scrap materials easier. Balers, compactors, baling presses and recycling systems of all types are used in many industries, including medical facilities, restaurants, junk yards and schools.

Compacting and baling waste materials reduces storage size and transportation size, saving companies time, money and carbon footprint. Waste materials in nearly every industry can be compacted and/or bound by balers, from food scraps to old tires. Balers come in a variety of customizable sizes, levels of durability, capacities and turnkey recycling system options. Some balers can be designed to tie, wrap and cut bales to specific sizes, although these features cost more and require additional maintenance. Restaurants, retail facilities and small warehouses often use small in-house balers to compact cardboard boxes, food scraps and excess packaging. Plastic, paper and styrofoam balers are essential parts of recycling facilities.

As recycling becomes more central to industrial and manufacturing processes, baling equipment will continue to play a central role in the process as well. Materials are baled and compacted in order to be shipped to recycling facilities to be reused in the production of future items within the same industry, such as scrap metal recycled into new sheet metal for car bodies. Sometimes material can be re-used to create an entirely new material, such as the recycling of newsprint for the creation of fibers used in shoe soles. For high waste-producing industries, such as automotive manufacturing, plastic manufacturing and grocery stores, the choice of compacting waste materials for recycling is a matter of cost economy. Waste must be disposed of whether it is recycled or not, but using compactors to reduce waste bulk cuts down on carbon emissions, and recycling used materials for profit or for material recuperation provides an ROI on waste which would not have existed otherwise.

A note on the differences between "balers" and "compactors":
 
Balers and compactors both are often sold by equipment manufacturers as identical or similar products. Compactors and balers do very similar work, but their functions in industrial manufacturing and commercial retail are slightly different. Balers are used in trash compacting, recycling and agriculture, their primary function in industrial manufacturing being to compact and bind, or "bale" recyclable materials into bales which are more space efficient and less costly to transport. Compactors are also used at times to compact recyclable materials, but they are primarily used to compact waste. A baler's purpose is concentrated in compacting and binding materials, often with twine - as in hay bales or cardboard bales - while a compactor's function is primarily to reduce waste management cost by compacting non-recyclable materials for disposal. Materials compacted and bound by balers are more often destined for recycling plants, while materials processed by compactors are usually transported to landfills. Industrial manufacturers and retail owners use both for space and transportation efficiency.

Balers and Balers Manufacturers Images Provided by Nexgen® Bailing Systems

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Baler Types

• Bailers are used to compress industrial waste for shipping or recycling.
• Baling presses usually have a bin, which collects materials, and a large plate, which comes down onto the material compressing it. Then, it is baled and ejected.
  
• Cardboard balers are designed to deal specifically with compressing and binding cardboard, usually for recycling.
  
• Compactors are used to condense or crush material with one or two mechanisms that press the material with extreme force and power to the desired size. Compactors compress material on a ratio of 5:1, while balers average 25:1.
  
• Crushers and flatteners compact and crush or flatten scrap material to improve handling, transportation and disposal.
  
• Double-ram balers have a separate ram for compressing recyclable material against a fixed wall and a second ram for ejecting the finished bale (also see single-ram baler).
  
• Downstroke baler is a baling device in which the compression ram and plate move vertically in the chamber.
  
• Garbage/Trash compactors are powerful devices used to condense waste, trash and garbage.
  
• Hay balers can be stationary or manually controlled to collect and bind hay, usually into cylinders or squares.
  
• Horizontal balers are the most general type of baler available. These balers load from one end and travel the material through to the other end in a horizontal motion. Not all horizontal balers follow a perfect horizontal path, but move the load horizontally for the majority of the process.
  
• Round balers gather material or are fed material, which is rolled or collected and bound into a cylinder shape, like common hay bales.
  
• Trash compactors are used to compress waste materials to save space.
• Vertical balers usually have more than one charge box in order to process different types or grades of material. They often have to be unloaded manually and load from the top of the machine.
  
• Wide mouth balers have a larger entryway, which allows for the baling of materials of larger than normal width and height.

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Baler Terms

Auto-tie - A device that automatically binds a bale with a wire or another tie material.
 
Banana Effect - The slight curving of a bale due to inconsistent density that causes the denser bottom portion to swell. This creates a trapezoidal bale shape that stresses the banding.
 
Baler - A machine used to pack together and bind secondary materials for storage and or shipment.
 
Bales - Compressed material that is bound usually by wire.
 
Banding - The material, usually wire or nylon, used for wrapping around bales to secure them.
 
Compaction - The increase in an object's or material's density by applied pressure.
 
Density - The per unit size or space or the concentration of a material.
 
Feed Width - The width of the opening where material is inserted into the shredder.
 
Ferrous - Iron-based metals like steel.
 
Hammermills - These are high-speed rotor equipped machines with large hammers for crushing material into reduced sizes with up to 6,000 horsepower of force. Hammermills come in various sizes and material reducing capabilities.
 
Hydraulic Press  - Press that applies force with a piston that uses liquid.
 
Impact Crusher - A machine that has large rotors with hardened steel bars at various intervals to pound concrete or other material fed to the machine.  The pieces are then hurled against a hard steel wall, which further breaks them down.
 
Incline Conveyor - A conveyor that moves at an upward angle.
 
Industrial Shredders - Equipment for the processing and reduction of solid chemicals, materials and other solid products.

Landfill - An area where waste is disposed, then covered beneath a layer of earth.  Landfills are usually equipped with a liner to reduce soil and water pollution from any contaminating seepage, thus the term "sanitary landfill."
 
Pneumatic Press - A press that applies pressure from a piston that uses gas and or air.

Recycling - A resource recovery method involving the collection, separation and processing to specification of scrap materials and their uses as raw materials for the manufacture of new products.
 
Scrim - A very loosely woven fabric, i.e. netting, used as support or backing.
 
Secondary Materials - A term commonly used as a synonym for materials in the recycling process.
 
Throughput - The amount of material conveyed in a specific amount of time.
 
Waste Exchange - A network that connects companies, which produce waste, with companies who can use the waste in their production.

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