A win-win partnership

When Scott Cisco started 11 years ago at the Auglaize County Solid Waste District material recovery facility (MRF) in northwest Ohio, the county was processing about 4 million pounds of recyclables per year.

Now, the county is up to 12 million pounds processed per year and growing, and to meet those needs, the Auglaize County MRF needed a baler that could handle its increasing volumes and changing material streams.

While shopping around, the Maren ProPAK line of balers came highly recommended, and after about three meetings with the Maren team and help from an Ohio Environmental Protection Agency grant, Cisco and his team purchased the Maren ProPAK 2R265-40 for Auglaize County in 2019.

“I really wanted to make sure that when you spend that kind of money, you’re buying what you need,” Cisco says. “At this point, I am extremely happy with our decision.”

The Maren ProPAK 2R265-40 is a two-ram automatic horizontal shear baler ideal for postindustrial cardboard and scrap metals while easily processing fiber, plastic and other recyclables. It is available with dual motors to maximize performance and throughput while minimizing electrical consumption. Its large “wide box” opening is ideal for handling a variety of recycled materials, while its robust ram and door position transducers prevent shear jam and provide automatic control and bale size.

Specifically, the MRF needed a machine that could process bulkier material as it began seeing more gaylord boxes; large, rigid plastics; and packaging materials in its stream.

Cisco says he also was looking to boost efficiency and safety by choosing an auto-tie baler.

“Our previous baler was a manual tie, and if we’d knock out 20 bales in a day, you were doing pretty good,” he says. “Now, we can do 20 bales pretty easily in just two or three hours, so there’s been a huge difference.

“It’s a lot safer. … It’s been a win-win for us all the way around.”

In fact, Cisco and his team are so happy with the Maren ProPAK’s performance, they’ve also opened their facility for other operators to see the equipment in action and assess it firsthand.

“We’ve had people bring their own material in, enough for maybe a half dozen bales, and we’ll bale it up for them because they want to see what it looks like and they want to watch [the bale] come out as it’s being made,” he says.

“What I really like about this baler is it’s very easy to use. It’s very hands-on. In our business, we get a lot of turnover and a lot of help, and it’s easy to train people and for them to understand how to use [the Maren baler].”

In more than five years of operation, Auglaize County’s Maren ProPAK rarely has needed major service, but Cisco is confident if that time comes, the team at Maren will be ready and able to step in and help minimize downtime and keep operations running smoothly.

“It would be nice to have another baler exactly like it. We would be set for quite a while.”