Riding a green wave

Few recycling equipment makers are publicly listed companies, meaning it can be hard to know for sure exactly whether sales of machinery such as shredders and balers in the market are growing, steady or declining.

However, a global emphasis on landfill diversion and circular economy models, along with a trace of “resource nationalism” favoring local recyclables processing, appears to have contributed to a healthy environment for recycling machinery and technology vendors.

And while investments in techniques such as the chemical recycling of plastics attract attention, the overall good diagnosis applies even to one of the oldest recycling technologies: balers and baling systems.

Despite a plummet in the generation of office paper, newspapers, magazines, catalogs and directories in nations with developed economies, the world’s appetite for paperboard packaging and an increased emphasis on collecting plastic for recycling has kept the baler market active.

In the United States this spring, the American Baler Co. business unit of Avis Industrial Corp. embarked on a manufacturing capacity expansion project at its flagship facility in Bellevue, Ohio.

“This expansion project is a testament to the accomplishments of the entire American Baler team and the demonstrated loyalty of its customers to rely on American Baler for their recycling equipment needs,” said D.J. VanDeusen, president of the Recycling & Waste Equipment Division of Avis Industrial, as the project got underway last month.

In addition to American Baler, the Recycling & Waste Equipment Division of Avis Industrial includes Harris and International Baler Corp.—two more baler producers with a global footprint.

Last year, when reporting its third quarter results, U.S.-based Kadant Inc. pointed to its material handling business unit as a bright spot for increased revenue and income figures for the quarter. That business segment of Kadant includes U.S.-based Balemaster and Germany-based Paal, both of which make balers for the recycling market.

“Growth in our material handling segment was particularly notable, as we benefited from strong demand for both aftermarket parts and capital equipment, leading to excellent financial results in the third quarter,” Kadant President and CEO Jeffrey L. Powell said last fall.

In a more recent investor presentation this March, Powell highlighted solid demand for aftermarket parts across all product lines, indicating that recycling plant operators, even when not ordering new machines, are investing to extend the life and maximize the performance of their balers.

Sweden-based baler maker Presona AB, meanwhile, has been expanding its distributor network. Last October, the company announced Lenmatec Group of Tessenderlo, Belgium, had become its exclusive partner for Presona’s baler program in the Benelux region.

“The Benelux [region] is an important market for us,” Presona CEO Stefan Ekström said at the time. “It is imperative that we have a trusted partner in place who can both support our current customers and develop the markets.”

In April, Presona announced Sweden-based K.D. Feddersen Plastics Machinery as a new partner for Presona’s baler program across the Nordic countries. Selling new balers was again mentioned by Ekström, who called K.D. Feddersen “an ideal partner to help us expand our presence and support our customers in these key regions.”

New baler purchasers continue to value high output productivity, with Kadant Paal’s distributor in the U.S.—Bulk Handling Systems (BHS)—saying one recent installation emphasizes those goals.

In a sponsored piece for Recycling Today, BHS and Paal say a Kadant PAAL Konti X500 baler installed about five years ago operates up to 18 hours per day at its South Carolina location.

The baler operator, RePower South and the Berkeley County Recycling and Recovery Facility, specified needing a machine that could handle up to 500 tons per day of municipal solid waste (MSW) and up to 10 tons per day of single-stream recyclables.

“We have been constantly increasing the volume coming in and the volume of commodities we’re shipping out year by year,” Berkeley County Plant Manager Greg Smith told Recycling Today late last year.

RePower South is no doubt joined by companies around the world whose business mission entails collecting, sorting and preparing for shipment—and thus possibly baling—more paperboard, plastic or metal to feed the world’s basic materials producers.

In Ohio, the American Baler expansion and investment project began in late April and is expected to be completed by the fall of 2025.

Demonstrating baling’s proven place in the market, the project coincided with American Baler’s 80th anniversary. The expansion will increase the site’s manufacturing footprint by 20 percent with the addition of a wing to the existing facility and will increase the company’s available capacity for fabrication, production and assembly with an eye on the reduction of equipment and parts lead times, according to American Baler.

For Avis Industrial and American Baler, the expansion decision was not an impulsive one, but was prompted by expectations that the world’s appetite for balers will remain in place.

“Project planning began nearly 18 months ago, and I am grateful that Avis Industrial has the confidence to continue investment in our Bellevue, Ohio, facility, operation and staff,” American Baler General Manager Nathan Kuhl says.