Realcent.org

I've got a friend that is considering buying a cardboard baler. He will have approximately one 800 to 1000 pound bale per week.

Anybody know what he might get for baled cardboard?

Baler salesman says there are companies that will pick up his cardboard at his site. I've only heard of this for truckload quantities. Anybody ever hear of it for small quantities?

I kinda think he would be ahead sending it to the landfill.

Ask the baler salesman for some specific examples. It is hard to imagine that paying for itself anytime soon without a lot of sweat equity on your friend’s part. Also, why not look for a used baler. If there aren’t any now, there likely will be very soon with all the small businesses that will fail in the coming months.

Don’t know for sure- just my random thoughts.

Our local (all volunteer) recycling center just closed down due in part to a shortage of volunteers, but also largely due to unsustainable prices. And that was BEFORE the corona shutdowns started hammering the market.

Cardboard was down to ~$45/ton, and that was shipping full truckloads to a drywall paper manufacturer only 30 minutes away. The price was four times that 3-4 years ago. The market can vary widely by region, but I can't imagine anybody coming by to pick up a single bale and paying for it. He would need to save up 40,000 - 45,000 pounds (and have a place to keep it dry) to fill a truck. At 800 - 1000 pounds a week, that's a full year. And the load (at least in our market) would only be worth about $1000.

A baler salesman sold our center on a vertical baler with a loading conveyor specifically for doing plastic a couple years ago. Only to find out from the techs that came to set it up that they had never heard of anybody using this model for plastic before. And it turned out to be quite difficult to unload plastic from it due to the design of the wire channels. The salesman never returned their calls after it was paid for and installed. So be leery of anything that sounds too good to be true.

If your friend wants to bale cardboard, look for business/industrial auctions on BidSpotter and ProxiBid and pick up a small used baler cheap. I would highly recommend against purchasing a brand new baler for this purpose.

I was a facility manager in 2019. We paid $50.00 a week for a recycling company to pick up our cardboard bales, plastic bales and wooden pallets. We sent one to two bales back per week and all combined barely covered the pick up cost. Economically i can't see any financial benefits. It would be more of a convenience being able to bale and stack them (provided he had a forklift already).
Probably better to find a scrapper willing to take them if he can. Just my opinion

Around here you are lucky to be able to dump cardboard for free. I don't bother separating it as the labor cost exceeds the savings on dump fees.

Thank you all for your insights.

A farmer by me takes in cardboard and lets his cattle stomp on it and lets it biodegrade.

Tucson, one company, all they do is cardboard. Pay 25 a ton. Flower shop generated 4,.800 lbs a week. We , baled, it with baler twine. 40 ish pound bales, 8 mile trip. Was not paying my gas to take it in.