Recycling plant operators ask their balers to do a lot, and Buddy Himes of Himes Service Co., Waco, Texas, has seen the good, the bad and the ugly of how balers are used within the industry.
In a presentation to attendees of Recycling Today’s June Paper, Plastics and Electronics Recycling Conferences in Atlanta, Himes offered advice and provided some examples to be avoided that he has encountered in the field.
In terms of baling paper, Himes noted that bales can be made more dense and have better integrity when pre-baling steps are added for some types of paper. He noted that using a shredder, conditioner or ruffler on such items as phone directories can improve the compaction factor. Using such machines on slick paper like old magazines can also improve baler performance.
For those baling plastic bottles or jugs, Himes said devices like flatteners or perforators as ways to remove air from the bales as well as to improve the baler’s cycle time and the density of the bales.
Himes offered several slides with photos for attendees that showed unsafe practices such as open pulleys and chains near workstations and sloppy housekeeping (paper on the floor and piles of dust) that can be the cause of either slips-and-falls or plant fires.
Housekeeping and maintenance, Himes stressed, causes temporary productivity halts but inevitably help to present longer work stoppages and even catastrophic equipment failure.
Recycling Today’s Paper, Plastics and Electronics Conferences were held June 7-9 at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta in that city’s downtown.