While we have been conditioned for the past 20-30 years to think of recycling in terms of making money, the benefits both economically and environmentally are myriad. For instance, baling can reduce labor costs.
Labor reduction
- is a matter of gaining efficiency with a machine. It is not unusual to replace a full-time person who spent their days breaking down boxes and bringing them to a recycler with a baler. On average, that returns a minimum of over $20,000 a year. But it also returns them back to some other function which can again replace an annual wage, and so it goes in a cascade of labor benefit.
With a baler, the box crushing is done by the baler so one person does not have to be responsible – it can be shared by everyone. It will also take much less time as you simply throw the box in and let the baler do the work. Even though your will need to tie off a bale at some point, for the average company that will be once or twice a day. So you exchange 20-40 minutes a day for the 8 hours you get back.
Cost avoidance
-is another money path, but it is considered a “soft cost”. By reducing the material in your dumpster, the number of hauls or dumps should be reduced in an equivalent number. So if you reduce your trash by 50% just by taking boxes out of your dumpster, and your hauler dumps your trash once a week, that service should be able to extend to every two weeks, thus reducing your monthly bill.
While you can make money on bales, even at no sale value, it has reduced your costs which is recaptured in your bottom line.
Loss Prevention
- is very often overlooked as a potential benefit to baling. Stealing through the trash, especially in retail settings and some manufacturing is often the number-one way companies lose inventory. Hiding items in a bale is a much trickier affair. Not only can it get crushed, but when a bale is tied off, it is difficult not to notice when it is untied or un-banded to retrieve items. Items that are stolen from businesses are often retrieved by others rather than an employee or the access tot eh trash bin affords a quick way to feed the item to an accomplice or to hide it for later retrieval. Trash bins that are locked are usually accessible to staff and most trash areas are not secured.
Weather and burglary threats
- While some will scoff at this, consider the danger of having to leave a back door ajar or unlocked so a staff member, working alone can empty trash at the end of a shift or during a shift. It is human nature to not want to lock the door just for a quick run to the trash.
Staff are also subjected to robbery in dimly lit trash corrals or allies leading to them. If you have staff that is particularly vulnerable, thieves will likely know that and can take advantage of it.
Weather can also be a threat. Sending a staff member to the trash during a lightening storm, snow or rain can result in a slip and fall injury or direct weather related injury.
Medical or injury
- claims can be very expensive. Just one event can cost on average over $30,000 of lost time, wage and God forbid a lawsuit. Amongst the most common injuries business pay for are trip and fall, improper lifting and injury due to repetitive stress, vehicular accidents and cuts from box cutters.
Vehicles that are present in trash areas are often not expecting people so that becomes a threat. Repetitive stress can come from braking boxes down all day and of course that box cutter can result in a nasty cut. Trip and fall we already mentioned, but also hoisting trash or recycling into a large dumpster. Many times, a building will only supply a dumpster with a very high lift height. Swinging trash or throwing boxes upward are much more likely actions to cause a muscle injury. And if you miss, the box or trash comes right back at you.
And let’s not forget about dumpster divers. Come on, admit that at least once in your life you dumpster dove for boxes. Be it for moving or some other need. People who get injured in your dumpster retrieving boxes will not hesitate to sue you for their bad judgement.
Space is valuable
- While we addressed this a little earlier on, space is probably the most overlooked expense people squander. Consider that just 10 boxes that are 2 foot cubes will take up 20 cubic feet of space. Now imagine that on a dock where you need room for inventory. Or consider racking space. If your cost per square foot to lease building space is $3.00 a square foot let’s say you swap out the 20 square feet bokes are taking up for a pallet of goods.
That space alone is costing you $60 plus the loss of inventory that could be in that same space. So using a simple example of 1 pallet which is roughly 16 square feet being valued at $1,000 of product. Now that space is costing your $1,060 with boxes that should have been baled and set aside outdoors where they belong.
The point is, you are paying a price right now for how you do things – you just don’t know what that is because you have never had to calculate it. When you do, you will likely find a baler saves you much more than it cost both short and long term.
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