Should a Cardboard Baler Be on Restaurants’ Christmas List?

There are obvious benefits of cardboard balers to your business and other, less obvious, advantages follow on from these. A cardboard baler is not restricted to an indoor location; they are flexible and robust enough to be kept outdoors as well. Bins are what people are used to using in everyday life but nowadays there is an all-round better solution for businesses in the form of a cardboard baler.

Cost Savings

All businesses want to spend as little on their overheads as possible. Installing a cardboard baler will go a long way to ensuring a minimal spend on waste. Think of a stand-alone cardboard baler, as a replacement for multiple cardboard bins, which need collecting on a weekly or sometimes more regular basis. The waste management company that empties the bins will charge to empty any bin that contains waste on collection day, meaning bins that are not even full get charged the same amount. This is evidently a waste of money and unnecessary expenditure.

Research at QCR shows that if you’re spending more than £20 a week on waste management, a baler could be a more cost effective solution. All cardboard can be processed through the baler, compacted and tied together to make a bale, which can then be collected by a recycler rather than a waste management company. The difference here is that baled cardboard is a much more sought after commodity than loose cardboard. Recyclers will either collect the bales for a small charge or more often than not for free. The collections can be arranged on a weekly or fortnightly basis depending on how many bales are stacked up per week. Businesses that produce mill size bales are also in a position to gain revenue from the recyclers, as their value is high enough to warrant a payment. In conclusion there really is no comparison between dumping loose cardboard in bins and baling cardboard in terms of cost.

Space Savings

Some larger businesses also use skips as well as bins. Even with a large indoor or outdoor waste area, a skip and multiple bins will take up a significant amount of space. These working areas should be easy to navigate with no hazards or objects in the way. The situation becomes more of a worry for businesses like bars, restaurants and small retail outlets that often have small waste areas and have to cram bins into the tight space. Not only does this restrict room to manoeuvre but it also gives off a poor impression for customers who may well be disapproving of an area full of unsightly bins. More space and a more attractive waste area are easy to achieve when a cardboard baler is installed. As previously mentioned, the singular baler acts as a replacement for one or more cardboard bins. A cardboard baler has the footprint of one bin, so the space savings are there to see. The flexibility of a cardboard baler also means it can be kept in the indoors, leaving a significant amount of space outside for something new like a storage or seating area.

Time Savings

Flat-packing cardboard is a mundane and time consuming task, which is nearly always a necessary job when bins are solely used to dispose of cardboard. Flat-packing is the only way to exploit space in bins otherwise whole cardboard boxes would fill a bin up in no time, resulting in even more expensive bin lifts. A cardboard baler handles whole boxes so flat-packing is no longer required. There is a large range of cardboard balers, which all have different apertures to handle small boxes through to very large boxes. The bulky nature of bins and skips usually means they cannot be located in a convenient place. Ideally they would be situated close to the source of the waste but this is generally not possible. Staff have to walk from the waste source to the outdoor bin area, which takes up a significant chunk of labour hours each week. This is where having a cardboard baler inside easily outperforms outdoor bins and even an outdoor baler. Positioning a cardboard baler indoors stops the need for unnecessary walks outside, which saves on labour hours and waste cardboard can be dealt with quickly.

Health and Safety

Loose cardboard is messy and is often seen overflowing in bins and on the ground at businesses that do not use a cardboard baler. Cardboard that has fallen or been placed on the ground can easily be classed as a fire hazard and inspectors would see this as a huge negative. Loose cardboard can easily be tripped over as well, which is a danger for staff and it will have a knock-on effect for the business should any accidents occur. Baling all cardboard means the waste is tied together and it can be stacked out of the way, reducing the risk of fire and removing the tripping hazard.

Green Credentials

Lastly, using a cardboard baler considerably improves the green credentials of any business. Messy and voluminous bins and skips are not going to get good marks from government inspectors, who would much rather see a cardboard baler being used. A neat and tidy business is also going to get the seal of approval from customers who would rather return to a business they know looks after environment.