Optimum performance made simple

Last year, Buffalo Recycling Enterprises (BRE), based in Buffalo, New York, needed a new baler when one of its two existing machines finally reached the end of its life.

BRE, a privately owned recycling facility and division of Modern Disposal Services of Model City, New York, processes up to 400 tons per day of mostly single-stream residential material as well as some commercial collection. The facility services Niagara and Erie counties in New York and, according to BRE Maintenance Manager Jonathan Meredith, is the only recycling facility within 100 miles, making reducing downtime and replacing outdated equipment even more critical.

After thorough vetting, BRE chose a Konti 600 baler from Kadant PAAL and installed the machine in June 2023. The Germany-based company says its Konti range of balers delivers optimum performance and reliability, even under the most demanding operating conditions, and provides high throughput and bale weights, low energy consumption, simple operation and maintenance and low total cost of ownership.

It’s the ease of operation, however, that caught Meredith’s attention.

“It wasn’t over-engineered; it wasn’t overthought—it was a machine that did what it needed to do without all the bells and whistles,” Meredith says. “Don’t get me wrong, it still has bells and whistles, but they’re where they need to be, not just added features that make your life difficult.”

The simple approach also allowed an easy transition for Meredith and his team as they learned the ins and outs of their new baler.

“We have a very diverse group here … and they’re able to learn the machine just through its simplicity,” Meredith says. “You just select the grade and then hit the ‘go’ button and it goes.”

Another major selling point was the Konti 600’s ability to support BRE’s other existing baler and offer redundancy that has become so crucial to recycling operations.

“Everything in our plant had to go through the Konti, and that was one of the selling points of getting this machine is that it could handle everything,” Meredith says. “It handled all our plastics, aluminum and all our fiber and still never missed a beat.”

As of mid-April, the Konti 600 at BRE had 2,588 hours of use and had produced 45,631 bales at an average weight of 2,200 pounds per bale—and that’s with the machine not even running at maximum capacity. Meredith says if he ran his Konti 600 at full capacity, the bales would be too heavy for its machines to move them.

Since the Konti 600’s installation about a year ago, the equipment’s simplicity and ease of use continue to impress Meredith, a 24-year recycling industry veteran.

“From my perspective, [it] is the simplicity of both the design and the maintenance,” he says. “There’s no taking six things apart to change one thing. Nothing is hidden. It just does what it needs to do in its simplest form.”