Sticking with the best

The Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative (OBRC), based in Clackamas, Oregon, recently installed a new baler at its recycling facility in Eugene, Oregon, and its long-standing relationship with Crown Point, Indiana-based equipment maker Balemaster made the choice a no-brainer.

“We have a great distributor of Balemaster equipment that I inherited when I took my role, and I’ve been with our company for nearly 19 years at this point and in my current role for almost three years,” OBRC Chief Operating Officer Troy Ballew says, emphasizing the relationship between OBRC, Balemaster and its Pacific Northwest distribution partner, Kirk Sales International and its owner, Mai Kirk.

“We had a president at the time … and he was a very good operator and he chose to go with the best, and Balemaster, in our opinion, is one of the best. They make a really good product that we know we can rely on, and we have very demanding conditions that we operate in. So, we’ve just continued that relationship over the years and it’s never let us down.”

OBRC recycles up to 2.2 billion beverage containers annually in the state of Oregon, with nearly 60 percent being aluminum containers, and much of that aluminum is processed with a Balemaster E-915 auto-tie baler—a machine that has held up in often demanding conditions.

“It’s a dirty, smelly, wet, sticky business and we have to have equipment that can hold up in that environment,” Ballew says.

The E-series is the flagship model of the Balemaster auto-tie product line. The horizontal baler offers an ideal combination of accessories to meet unique scrap handling and recycling requirements, with features that promise few adjustments and reduced maintenance costs.

Standout features include a heavy-duty automatic wire-tier with a simplistic design that completes the tie-off cycle in less than 30 seconds, a comprehensive touch screen controller with more than 50 information screens, advanced dust control, a unique bale density control system for automatic and continuous regulation and energy-efficient hydraulic power packs.

Two of OBRC’s facilities essentially operate 24/7, so prioritizing minimal downtime was critical to maintaining that pace.

“We need something that we can rely on and we know isn’t going to go down and is going to be nearly bulletproof,” Ballew says. “Things break, things happen, but for us, in our environment and the business we’re in, we need [the baler] to be extremely reliable.

“It’s like a river of material that’s always flowing into our facilities, so we can’t stop it at the front door and say, ‘Oh, we broke down. We’re going to be down for two weeks … while we wait for a new baler.’ It just doesn’t work that way. We’ve got to have something that we know day in and day out is going to operate for us.”

More than its reliable, high-performing equipment, Ballew has appreciated the Balemaster customer service and attention to detail that made for a seamless transition to a new baler.

“One of the things that really stuck out to me was that I was able to sit down with [the Balemaster team] and they came to my facility, they looked at what we were doing, they looked at the exact flow of our materials and gave me a recommendation within their whole diverse group of balers,” Ballew says. “That’s important to me because they’re vested in my interest.”

And if he needs someone on-site to help figure out a problem—which Ballew says doesn’t happen very often—the Balemaster team is quick and responsive.

“We can go to them in an emergency and they’re there,” he says. “If many years go by and a pump goes out, I can rest assured that if I call them in a pinch and need it, they’ll find that for me and they’ll have it in stock.

“One of the things that I appreciate is that I can see how well-built the equipment is. … It’s a solid piece of equipment that I could rely on back when we bought it [originally] and I’m going to be able to rely on it going forward.”