Cardboard Baler

Well, I bought a cardboard baler today. I got a great deal on it so i wont lose money on it no matter what i do with it. It's a bigger one. i think it bales about a 5'x3'x3' bale. It runs on 480 3 phase. After i bought it i am considering keeping it and expanding my recycling business to include paper and cardboard. Does anyone else recycle paper/cardboard? Does anyone have better ideas for using this? I know there's a yard near me that pays for cardboard bales but not sure how much they pay. I'm waiting on the owner of that yard to call me back. Thoughts/Ideas?

I do know that when you get enough bales that the paper mills will buy them from you. Has to be a minimum of a semi load.

Right now my plan is to gather cardboard like i do Metal. CL ads,and visit businesses and see if they need someone to remove their cardboard waste. Network a lot!!!

The local Lions club here picks up cardboard and shredded paper for free. Not sure where they take it for recycling. I assumed that it was just retired guys getting together for something to do?

Marty

See if you have someone local that buys baled abs plastic, if it will bale cardboard it should bale plastic.

I looked into cardboard before because a yard near me buys cardboard. The problem I had was the bulk of cardboard. The yard near me was paying 1.5 cent a pound (I'm not sure if that is a good price or not). It would take a LOT of cardboard to make some money, but they would buy what every amount you brought in, so there was no need to bail the cardboard or have a few tons to sell it.

Before I got into bailing cardboard and starting to hoard cardboard, I would first find a buyer and work out the logistics.

I have no exsperince with it,but i know all the local grocery stores bail theres,ever so often ya see a truck with a little forklift picking it up,i just figure they have a contract with somebody,might check that out,if ya get enough and have the space they might come to you to pick up,dont know how they would price it.

I talked to a recycling yard in town and they pay about 5 cents a pound for cardboard thats baled, so its about half what metal bring in. not bad. in a area thats populated with about 300,000 ppl and thousands of companies i shouldnt have a problem getting cardboard.

My thought on cardboard would be if you have the space to store it inside and can bale it for better prices then why not. Would you just keep compacting the boxes in the bailer and then remove it when full? Or do you need lots of boxes to start with to get the bale started?

We had some guys would show up at my former job,had an old school bus, would gather all the cardboard they could pile in, but i guess it didnt pay off they quit coming after 4 or 5 trips,but i think they were driving 35 miles to get to our place.

Years ago worked at grocery store, monster bails like 5'X5'X4' bails averaged about $55 per bail, I am thinking they weighed about a ton a piece, we just backhauled them to the warehouse, but we did on average of 4 bales a day. But to answer someone else question you keep adding and squishing until it is full then tie them off, most have a chain device that lift them out onto a pallet.

Yes (did the grocery stpre thing for years when in high school/college)...you bale until it wont compact and then run metal wires through the bottom channel, tie them off and hook the chainup..when you let the hydraulic compressor up, it dumps the bale out onto a pallet. They generally weight 300-500 pounds as 2 of us could muscle it up if needed.

Yes you can bale plastics of all types in addition to paper and cardboard.