Baler Applications: Make It or Break It

Since its founding as a recycling buyback center in 1992, California Waste Solutions (CWS) of Oakland, Calif., has grown into a major presence on the West Coast as a collector and processor of recyclables for both residential and commercial accounts.

In addition to the collection, processing, distribution and sale of recycled products, CWS also designs, builds and manages recycling operations including processing plants, trans-loading facilities and transportation hubs for regional systems. The company has seen its place in the Bay Area solid waste and recycling industry grow considerably.

A growing trend among recyclers of curbside materials is the conversion to single-stream recycling, a trend that has moved particularly fast on the West Coast. CWS recently converted its two Oakland dual-stream recovery facilities to single-stream operations. The completion of a third single-stream facility late this summer brought CWS from its roots in Oakland to San Jose, home of the largest curbside recycling contract in California.

When San Jose officials decided to switch from source-separated and dual-stream to single-stream recycling on July 1, CWS partnered with Norcal Waste Systems, a local waste hauler, to service approximately 150,000 single family homes. The new partnership required the acquisition of a new facility and construction of a single-stream processing operation.

As a first step in setting up the new San Jose facility, CWS president David Duong and a team of company representatives reviewed facility needs based on expected levels of output, then researched and purchased the necessary equipment. Joe Sloan, a project manager for CWS, had directed start-up operations at the new plant. Looking back, he says, "We knew that we’d have 400 to 500 tons of material to process at this plant per day. We had to acquire machinery that we trusted to process that much material. We also studied the composition of the material stream that was provided by the city and designed the system from that point."

With this information in hand, CWS joined forces with George Gitschel of Rose Waste Systems, a local dealer of recycling equipment, including balers, conveyors and sorting equipment made by several manufacturers.

The end result of this alliance was the purchase and installation of a complete package of recycling equipment, custom built to meet CWS’s precise specifications. Equipment included a system of 50 conveyors, five disc screens, a number of sorting platforms, magnets, eddy current separators and bunkers, as well as two balers.

While baling machinery is logically one of the last steps in any recycling process, it is one of the most crucial components of the system. If a baler goes down, the entire system can be brought to a halt. Sloan confirms, "We are constantly processing material – the balers never rest. If we lose a baler, we’re really in trouble."

The specific balers purchased by CWS were selected based on the company’s knowledge of equipment specifications needed to meet its daily processing requirements. According to Sloan, the most important features in selecting these balers included speed of the baling cycle, baler dependability and support from the manufacturer. With advice and guidance from Gitschel, CWS purchased American Baler Co.’s Ram I (single-ram) baler for secondary fiber baling and the company’s Ram II (two-ram) baler for baling tin and aluminum containers, plastics and residual solid waste.

The single-ram machine, like many of this variety, is designed to bale most secondary fiber grades, compacts material against the back of the previous bale. A large hopper can accept bulky materials, including OCC, ONP and other grades of paper, producing a bale in less than 60 seconds.

Compaction forces of up to 185 pounds per square inch produce dense bales, with bale length easily adjustable during operation, according to the manufacturer.

CWS’s new two-ram baler can also bale a variety of materials. It is particularly suited for plastics because it creates heavier bales by compacting against a steel wall and offers multiple wire wraps to hold the bale together. Plastic containers in particular, filled with air and having a strong "memory" or desire to decompress, can require additional wire. The machine’s bale displacement of up to 47,000 cubic feet per hour puts it in the faster category of balers.

A redundant power pack allows the baler to continue baling with just one motor and pump while the other is being serviced. This is another feature that allows CWS to rely on its entire system, since the balers can keep operating even with the failure of a critical component.

Both of CWS’s new balers are capable of handling 50 tons of material per hour and producing consistently dense bales weighing up to 2,000 pounds. These heavier, denser bales allow operators to reduce wire use, move fewer bales and fit more bales per shipment. American Baler Co. also touts the versatility of the machines. Both balers can process any type of residentially-generated material, according to the company, giving CWS the option to temporarily run all lines into one baler if a problem arises.