About Industrial Balers and Balers Including: Bailers, Baling Presses, Cardboard
Balers, Compactors, Horizontal Balers, Industrial Compactors, Trash
Compactors & Vertical Balers.
Industrial balers are used to compress and bind materials, usually industrial, retail or consumer waste or byproducts, for shipping or recycling.
Compactors, very similar to balers, specialize in compressing waste materials in order to reduce waste material size for more efficient transportation. Industrial baler manufacturers often manufacture both
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 industrial 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.
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 industrial 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 industrial 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.
Industrial Baler Types
- are used to compress industrial waste for shipping or recycling.
-
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.
-
are designed to deal specifically with compressing and binding cardboard,
usually for recycling.
- 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.
- compact and crush or flatten scrap material to improve handling,
transportation and disposal.
-
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).
-
is a baling device in which the compression ram and plate move vertically
in the chamber.
- are powerful devices used to condense waste, trash and garbage.
- can
be stationary or manually controlled to collect and bind hay, usually
into cylinders or squares.
-
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.
-
gather material or are fed material, which is rolled or collected and
bound into a cylinder shape, like common hay bales.
- are used to compress waste materials to save space.
-
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.
-
have a larger entryway, which allows for the baling of materials of
larger than normal width and height.
Industrial Baler Terms
-
A device that automatically binds a bale with a wire or another tie material.
- 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.
- A machine used to pack
together and bind secondary materials for storage and or shipment.
- Compressed material
that is bound usually by wire.
- The material, usually
wire or nylon, used for wrapping around bales to secure them.
- The increase in
an object's or material's density by applied pressure.
- The per unit size
or space or the concentration of a material.
- The width of the
opening where material is inserted into the shredder.
- Iron-based metals
like steel.
- 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.
- Press that applies force with a piston that uses liquid.
- 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.
- A conveyor
that moves at an upward angle.
- Equipment for the processing and reduction of solid chemicals,
materials and other solid products.
-
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."
- A press that
applies pressure from a piston that uses gas and or air.
-
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.
- A very loosely woven
fabric, i.e. netting, used as support or backing.
- A term
commonly used as a synonym for materials in the recycling process.
- The amount of material
conveyed in a specific amount of time.
- A network that
connects companies, which produce waste, with companies who can use the
waste in their production.