Box Crushers By Harmony

So Many Boxes…

In today’s marketplace, every business receives or ships parts and products in cardboard boxes. These boxes range in size from just a few inches wide and a few inches tall, to much larger slip sheet sizes used in shipping things like small appliances and cabinets. Having so many empty boxes in your shipping and work areas creates hazards for employee safety related to tripping, fire, and vermin. Most companies choose to dispose of this extra operational waste using some type of box crusher machine rather than simply throwing them in a dumpster only to cost money to be hauled away. Box crushers are also helpful because they eliminate the labor expense and safety issue of having employees cut down boxes with a box knife to for easy loading into open top dumpsters!

Type Of Box Crushers

There are two types of machines that crush boxes that you can use to help reduce your hauling costs and the CO2 emissions displaced by trucks into the atmosphere. The kind of box crusher you need will depend on the size and quantity of the boxes and whether or not you have a recycler that will pay for this valuable commodity and what size is easiest for them to stack and transport the cardboard bales.

The first type is an industrial trash compactor. Both vertical and stationary compactors can be used inside or outside and can be loaded by a multitude of feeding configurations. They use the power of a hydraulically powered ram to compact boxes into a container by a compaction ratio of at least 4:1, to be emptied at a later date. While these long lasting waste solutions help to reduce the overall size of waste, reducing hauling frequency, cost, and burden on the landfill, the end result is that the boxes will go to the landfill, OR be pulled and recycled by someone else for revenue.

The second type of box crusher is a recycling baler. These environmentally conscientious machines are also both orientated as vertical and horizontal models. Each crushes boxes with a hydraulic ram and allows you to tie them with twine or wire to be stacked and transported to a recycling center. They typically have feed openings that range in size from 30-72″ with OCC weights between 145-1700 lbs. Some have automated feeding, such as tippers or conveyors, but these are usually horizontal baler models, as larger vertical balers tend to lack shear bar technology to eliminate jamming or bridging in the chamber opening.

Here are a few reasons why you should recycle cardboard boxes:

1. Recycling cardboard will free up space that bulky boxes take up, especially when they are not flattened. (Read how a Food Shelf saved space)
2. Recycling cardboard is good for the environment and will not take up precious landfill space.
3. Cardboard recycling can actually become a source of revenue for you, rather than a waste hauling expense.
4. Recycling cardboard can create a safer and more efficient work environment for your staff.

 

Mill Sized Box Crushers

For operations with greater quantities of cardboard boxes, recyclers prefer to pick up mill-sized bales. These dense, 60″ bales are easier to stack, store, and transport and fill out containers evenly. This helps to save on hauling costs.

Harmony manufacturers several different mill-sized box crushers. Our two most popular are our M60CB and M60MD. Both models have features like fully automatic compression cycles, hydraulic eject systems, and fast cycle times.

The M60CB baler was specifically designed and engineered for cardboard and is one of our most cost-effective balers, creating uniform bales measuring 30”x 60”x 51” and weighing up to 1000 lbs.

The M60MD has a low profile design that allows you to create mill-sized bales in areas with a lower ceiling height. This is more common than you might think, especially in back room areas of department stores. This baler makes OCC bales measuring 30”x 60” ≤ 30” and weighing up to 800 lbs.