Friday, March 28, 2014

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.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Aluminum Recycling

Aluminum is everywhere in our daily life. The recycling of aluminum becomes very important to save energy and prevent pollution. Recycle waste aluminum into new aluminum products can reduce 95% air pollution and 71% energy consumption compared from making new aluminum from bauxite ore. Actually the aluminum is a kind of perfect recyclable material because it is 100% recyclable.

In the U.S., the aluminum recycling already exceeded 50% in the 1980’s, and 62.1% in 2000. In 2004, Americans has recycled enough aluminum to build thirteen aircraft carriers. Every three months, Americans discard enough aluminum to completely rebuild every single commercial airplane in America. In Japan, the recycling of aluminum rate is also very high. It has already reached 43% in 1990, and as high as 83% in 2001.

Many people must do not know that the energy saving by recycling an aluminum can will run a TV for three hours, and that it needs about 400 years for aluminum to break down naturally if do not recycle.

From recycling a waste aluminum can into a new can, it only takes 60 days. Within this short period, a drink can from the grocery’s shelf to consumer’s hands, then turn to recycling plant being melted into aluminum plate and then made into a new can. The physical property is the same as before because the aluminum’s quality will not downgrade during recycling, so aluminum recycling is an ideal recycling material.

Here are some main procedures for aluminum recycling process.
1)       Aluminum products like aluminum cans, aluminum extrusion etc. are compressed into dense bales by baling machine, which can reduce transportation, storage and handling cost. Usually vertical hydraulic baler with large pressure force above 100T is a proper choice for pressing aluminum products (e.g. Sinobaler aluminum baling press machine Model SVB2-T-1200). After this, transport the waste aluminum to recycling plant.
2)       Sort the waste aluminum for confirming the end-use and treatment process.
3)       Shredding the aluminum into small pieces by heavy duty shredder.
4)       Removing the coating or paint on the aluminum surface.
5)       Melting.
6)       Aluminum casting.

As you can see, aluminum recycling is great for environment and saving energy. When you are going to discard a drink can, please think - Recycle it instead of discarding it.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

"Green" Cement

Cement is one of the fundamental raw materials to promote the development of human civilization. From 2000 years ago pantheon art work of ancient Rome, to modern skyscrapers, highways, airports and docks, the trace of cement is everywhere. From the aspect of the total volume, the amount of cement used in the world is just after water.

However, cement manufacturing is one of the main emission sources of greenhouse gas, so cutting emission is naturally the top priority.  According to Mexico media reports, scientific research institution in Brazil had successfully developed a new technology using agricultural waste, such as bagasse or rice husk, as raw material to produce environment-friendly, and inexpensive “green” cement.

Using agricultural waste of bagasse and rice husk to make the “green” cement will not only reduce the pollution to the environment, it can also enable waste recycling, increase the added value to the agricultural products, and cut down the cement production cost at the same time.

Agriculture waste generated in many countries is mostly used as a fuel in the boilers for producing energy, processing paddy, through direct combustion or by gasification.  For example, in India, about a million tonnes of rice husk ash and sugarcane bagasse ash is produced annually.  Instead of dumping these ashes and cause great environment threat to the land and the surrounding area, making use of the ash as a replacement for concrete (about 15 to 20% of the whole cement material) certainly makes more sense.

Such replacement will significantly reduce the greenhouse gas emissions, because the processing procedure of the agriculture waste is relatively easy, quick, and low energy consuming.  The manufacturing cost of such “green” cement is only one tenth of traditional cement.  Furthermore, its lifespan is longer than traditional cement, and the texture is much finer.

Brazil is rich in planting sugar cane. Its sugar cane annual production and export volume is ranking first in the world. Brazil sugar cane existing arable land is about 6.5 million hectares and sugar cane’s annual production is up to 550 million tons. Cement’s average annual production is about 45 million tons. If the bagasse ash in the cement mixture proportion is 15%, Brazil can reduce emissions of about 3 million tons of carbon dioxide a year!

Look into the future and stand at the angle of environment protection, it is important to continue making further research on how to fully reuse waste materials to make “greener” cement.

Sinobaler baling and bagging machine can help to press these loose materials into dense bales. Please visit us at http://www.sinobaler.com/application/rice-husk-baling-press/ for more information.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Used Clothes Recycling



According to a report from the Council for Textile Recycling (CTR), in the United States alone, people on average throw away 70 pounds of clothing every year, this equals to roughly 191 T-shirts per person. If these used clothes are directly sent to landfill, they not only take up space, it can also contaminate soil and groundwater and emit horrifying odors. Besides landfill, these used clothes may also be incinerated, which releases tons of greenhouse gases, contributing to global warming and climate change.

Hence, there are multiple benefits associated with recycling old clothing.  No only we can reduce the landfill space, we can also lower the amount of pesticides used in growing cotton, reduce the amount of artificial fibers made from petroleum to make into textile fabrics, lower water consumption needed to dye fabrics, and cuts down on the pollutants, greenhouse gases and volatile organic compounds released into the water and air from manufacturing processes. Moreover, used clothing industry creates job opportunities as well as provides people with lower income with affordable clothing.

To recycle your used clothes, the most straightforward method is to donate it to your nearest charity organization.  The donated clothing will then be collected and carefully sorted according to different grades by a textile recycling companies.  Those clothing in “wear-able” condition will be baled according to their grades, and be sold to third world countries such as Africa. Damaged textiles or clothing will be processed to make industrial wiping rags, or be used in high quality paper manufacturing, or material suitable for fiber reclamation and filling products.

Considering that majority of used clothes are sent abroad to countries where the demand for secondhand clothing is high, a baling machine plays an important role in recycling clothes. Lifting chamber baler from SINOBALER is specially designed for baling used clothes into dense, regularly shaped bales. The compressing chamber can be fully lifted up making it very convenient and easy to wrap and cross strap the bales.  As for baling wiping rags recycled from damaged clothes, the scale weighing bagging baler offered by SINOBALER is the right machine to go.  For more information, please visit our website at www.sinobaler.com, or contact us directly for a customized baling solution.

Other waste material recycling articles:

How to recycle Plastic Bottle?
How to recycle Used Clothes?
How to recycle used shoes?
How to recycle used carpet?
How to recycle Trim Waste?
How to recycle Aluminum?
How to recycle tire/tyre in Australia? 
Tire/Tyre Recycling in efficient and cost saving way

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Used Carpet



Most of the carpets are petroleum-based product. It includes those made from synthetic materials such as acrylic, nylon, and polyester and are backed with latex, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or polyurethane. According to the data provided by www.informinc.org, every year there are 4 billion pounds of carpet being discarded in the United States. Owing to its bulky property, carpet poses waste management problems because it consumes enormous amounts of landfill space. Incineration of discarded carpet is also not a recommended method because it releases toxic chemicals, including dioxin, into the air. All these facts make carpet recycling a must.

As mentioned earlier, carpet is bulky. Therefore, at the beginning stage of carpet recycling, a baler or baling machine is usually used to compact these bulky used carpets into bales before shipping to carpet recyclers to work on the recycling process. And in order to well compact such bulky and heavy carpet, you will need a heavy duty balers to help you achieve the ideal baling effect.

SINOBALER recommends our Heavy Duty Dual Ram Baler for compressing used carpets into dense, regular shaped bales. This baler series are designed with high press force, from 80tons to 200tons, built in a heavy duty way with high strength, and features dual ram structure.

There are two standard chamber sizes available, which are 1100 x 700mm (43” x 28”) and 1520 x 760mm (60” x 30”). Considering carpets are bulky, it is suggested to go with 1520 x 760mm (60” x 30”). Bigger chamber size means wider feed opening which can make loading more convenient and efficient. As for what compressing force you should choose, it largely depends on your bale weight requirement and budget. Generally speaking, for machines with the same chamber size, the higher the compressing force, the higher the bale density will be. Higher bale density enables you to load more weight into containers and thus save more on shipping cost.

If the standard models cannot meet your requirement very well, customization is always available to tailor a machine that best suits your specific baling needs. Contact us today for your baling solution.


Other waste material recycling articles:

How to recycle Plastic Bottle?
How to recycle Used Clothes?
How to recycle used shoes?
How to recycle Trim Waste?
How to recycle Aluminum?
How to recycle tire/tyre in Australia? 

Tire/Tyre Recycling in efficient and cost saving way

Monday, January 13, 2014

How to deal with Used Drums or Barrels?

Colored steel drums
It is common to see steel drums or steel barrels around us in life.  Such cylindrical containers are generally used for transportation and storage of liquids and powders.  Many drums have a common nominal volume of 208 litres (55 US gallon), measuring just under 880mm (35”) tall with a diameter just under 610mm (24”). 

Regardless the drums were used to contain dangerous chemical or other harmless liquids or powders, storing the drums after their purpose has been served will always be a problem because empty drums tend to become massive containers that take up a lot of space.  For temporarily storage, you can simply just stack it up; but after a while, you will surely run out of space for these drums.

So how will you handle the disposal of drums? Used drums are not like any day-to-day end of used products which can be easily thrown away.  Such large drums are usually handled differently due to its size, as well as the residual material left over in the container which may be considered hazardous.  A waste may be considered hazardous if it is ignitable (i.e. burns readily), corrosive, reactive (e.g. explosive), or extraction procedure (EP) toxic.  Waste may also be considered hazardous if it contains certain amounts of particular chemicals.

A good solution for handling such kind of used drums is to use a Drum Crusher (also known as barrel flattener, drum press, or drum crushing balers) to flatten the drums as thin as three inches high.  This crushing baler can flatten almost any kind of metal containers, drums, or barrels, up to a full 220 litres (58 US gallon) size.  This baling machine is also equipped with Liquid Drainage Channel, which will efficiently drained the residual liquid in the drums out of the baler to keep your recycling area clean and safe.

One drum crusher can compact on average 60 pieces of drums per hour, and only require just 1 person to operate.  So with a volume reduction of almost 85%, and residual material drained, the flattened drums can now easily stockpile on pallets and move to a steel mill for recycling as per your country’s regulations.


Maybe you will feel purchasing a Drum Crusher is slightly costly during your initial budget planning.  But your return on investment is ensured if you choose a good quality machine, the drum crusher will be able to help you to maximize your storage capacity, as well as reduce your transportation cost.  Therefore, all these savings will be able to make your investment worth its while in no time.

Sunday, January 5, 2014

Tyre Recycling Technology in Australia


In current day and time, car is an indispensable transportation tool in everyone’s day to day life.  Each year, more than 40 million tyres in Australia reach the end of their working lives.  As such, the volume of waste tyres had become a concern to the society as only a quarter of these waste tyres are recycled whereas most will end up into landfill.  This not only takes up a lot of space, tyres are also know to leach harmful chemicals into the environment; cause fires; and provide a perfect breeding ground for pests like mosquitoes and rats.

Australia Advanced Manufacturing Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) has published a new technology on recycling waste tyres in 2011. Since then, this new technology had significantly helped to reduce the number of used tyres being sent to landfill or illegally dumped, and avoids long term land contamination due to the disposal of tyres in landfill, as well as fire risks caused by stockpiled tyres.  As you know, once a tyre pile catches fire, it is very hard to extinguish, and may continue to burn for days with black fumes visible for many miles.

This new technology was jointly developed by Melbourne company VR TEK, Deakin University and CSIRO. It is well recognized by the Federal Government, and was cited as one of the example of how innovation was helping to build a sustainable future for Australian companies and jobs for Australian workers.

In the past, shredded tyres could not easily be recycled due to its metal content. But with this new technology, the new patented process is able to turn used tyres to high quality rubber powders free of metal contamination, for redevelopment as new products, by using highly efficient mechanical segmenting method. The rubber crumb produced by this new process is even cheaper than virgin rubber.

A number of Australian companies have already started using this new technology to recycle waste tyres. They collect tyres from different sources and then process into range of rubber granules, chips, crumbs, or fine powders, which are then used for a variety of innovative applications, such as athletic tracks, children’s playgrounds, brake pads, new tyres, and many more.

So what exactly are the processes?  Following are the simple 5 steps:

– Tyre recycling companies collect the end-of-life from various locations, and transport them to their designated facility for processing.

– Tyres are sorted by size and composition for further processing. Tyres suitable for recycling are being separated and brought to production line directly.

Tyres are shredded in preparation for further processing, and then further reduced in size by a granulator.

The steel at the centre of each tyre is being removed and reused. Some factories can recycle over 3,000 metric tonnes of steel as a result of this process.  The steel free tyre granules are then stored separately.

– The tyre granules will be grinded into finished product depending on the particle size required. For example, buffings and shred (which can be used in matting, sport surfaces and turf), granules and chips (which can be used in horse arenas and asphalt), crumbs and powders (which can be used in road sealing, adhesives and paints), large shred tyre chips (which can be used in civil engineering and fuels).

By improving our knowledge and technology, understand how valuable resources are recovered and returned back into the circular economy and making changing to our purchasing decisions, we can all contribute to a more positive environmental future. :)

Other waste material recycling articles:

How to recycle Plastic Bottle?
How to recycle Used Clothes?
How to recycle used shoes?
How to recycle used carpet?
How to recycle Trim Waste?
How to recycle Aluminum?
Tire/Tyre Recycling in efficient and cost saving way