Which is right for you? Manual feed balers or continuous Auto-tie horizontal balers?

     

As the business world is changing towards doing things in a more environmental friendly way, baling machine is becoming an essential equipment to help giving waste materials a second life.

A right baler can easily help a company cut down cost on storage, transport, and some time manpower, which helps increases a company’s bottom line by turning the company’s recyclable waste to revenue. You will be able to obtain a positive Return on Investment within a relatively short timeframe.

But which baling machine is the right one for you?

There are two basic baler designs that are generally used by industry – vertical baler and horizontal baler. The key difference between these two types of balers is how the recyclable material is compacted.

Vertical balers compress waste from the top down (vertically), that is why some call this type of baling machine as down stroke balers. They are usually stand-alone machines, and typically required manual feeding and strapping. Whilst on the other hand, horizontal balers compress waste sideways (horizontally). Most horizontal balers are accompanied with in-feed conveyor or cyclone for achieving continuous feeding to increase efficiency. They can be further classified into closed end and open end types. For closed end horizontal balers, the strapping is usually done manually, compared to the open end ones, strapping and ejection of the bale is done automatically.

In terms of footprint, vertical balers are the smaller of the two. Thus, they are more suited for facilities where space is limited. With lesser raw material, such as steel, required for building, vertical balers are also more cost effective compared with horizontal balers of similar compressing force. However, with the restriction of manual feeding and strapping, the bale making speed of vertical balers is not comparable with that of continuous auto-tie horizontal balers.

To sum it all up, vertical balers are usually manually operated, and compress from the top down. They are best suited for smaller businesses where waste is not overwhelming hence lower output demand – i.e. small manufacturers, retail stores, supermarkets, textile manufacturers, or anywhere else with small quantities of recyclable materials.

Horizontal balers are the larger of the two machines. If equipped with continuous feeding, automatic strapping and ejection of bales, such continuous output is ideal for larger quantities of recyclables and constant usage.  With such automated machine, manpower requirements can also be cut to the bear minimum.

There is no absolute conclusion of which baler is better than the other. Considerations need to be made based on your facility’s space availability, waste material volume, labor availability and cost, as well as your financial condition.  Of course, there are still many other points need to review before selecting a right machine.  But with these basic pointers in mind, it will certainly help you to eliminate unwanted choices and communicate better with any professional baler sales representative to recommend you a right baler.