What Materials Can You Bale?

Yes, you can! Cardboard is one of the most commonly baled materials in the recycling industry. It is a durable material that can be easily compressed into dense bales. Baling cardboard can help businesses and organizations reduce their waste volume, save storage space, and earn revenue through recycling. Cardboard bales can be transported to paper mills, where they are processed and turned into new products, such as paperboard, packaging materials, or even furniture. If your business produces a high volume of cardboard waste then you should definitely consider baling it. However, it’s important to note that cardboard should be clean and free of any contaminants, such as food, grease, or liquids, before it is baled. Contaminated cardboard can lead to quality issues or even safety hazards during the baling process.

Yes, you can! It’s a light a malleable metal, which makes it an ideal material for a baler. In fact, balers may be solutions for several types of non-ferrous metals, but aluminum is the most common. Aluminum is one of the most valuable and commonly recycled materials in the world. Baling aluminum can help businesses and organizations reduce their waste volume, save storage space, and profit through recycling. Aluminum bales can be transported to smelters, where they are melted down and used to create new products, such as beverage cans, car parts, or even airplanes.

Yes, you can! Most recycling facilities will not take plastics unless they are baled. While recycling balers can generally handle all plastic types, the most ideal types are ones that hold their shape well like Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) and High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE). Thankfully, these are also the types of plastics that recycling facilities are most likely to pay for since the process to recycle them is relatively easy and economically viable. Baled plastics can be turned into a variety of new products, depending on the type of plastic and its quality. These products include containers, packaging, plastic lumber, textiles, furniture, and even automotive parts.

Yes, you can! Items like clothing, rugs, sheets, towels, and curtains a great materials to use a baler for. These bales can be transported to textile recycling facilities, where the materials are sorted, graded, and processed into new products. New products include clothing items, cleaning cloths, insulation materials, yarn, and even car seat padding. You can also bale textiles strictly for transport purposes to ship clothes and other textiles overseas.

Unfortunately, balers are currently underutilized for this waste stream. The recycling rate is fairly poor. According to the EPA, we produce about 17 million tons of used textile waste annually in the United States and 85% of that waste ends up in landfills. We’ve got a lot of work to do in terms of generating awareness for textile recycling possibilities considering that textiles are one of the fastest growing waste streams category in the country. Balers can play a major role in keeping this material out of landfills.