Baler opens export doors

By GEORGINA BOND



A mobile baling machine built by Oamaru farmer Bruce McDowell could open new doors for exporting recyclable materials - and help the environment.

The Southern X Press machine custom bales industrial materials such as plastics, tin, cardboard and used tyres.

McDowell, who developed and operates the machine, said one of the biggest costs of recycling was getting the materials to a baler.

The mobility of his press meant he could take it to sites where material was bulky or difficult to handle - and it had the potential to make baling these, and low-value materials such as plastic, more viable.

"Wherever waste or recyclable materials are, I can help get them to a point where they can be economically transported away," he said.

After spending most of this year refining the press, McDowell said he was ready to start taking on commercial volumes.

Until now, all his baling jobs have been in the South Island, but this week McDowell brought the press to Auckland to seek out new markets.

In one of his first North Island jobs, he was contracted by Network Plastic Processing to bale about 10 tonnes of plastic from a stockpile in Avondale.

The company's managing director, Bob Gibb, said the press was a "godsend" and made it more viable for businesses like his to export waste materials.

"I admire Bruce for taking a step forward and doing something that has been missing in the market so far," said Gibb.

McDowell said he had plans to reproduce the press.

He wanted, eventually, to introduce front loading technology.

"Once we get to that [stage] the material will be baled straight from the shopping malls and never handled loose."

He said he would like to see the press help communities recycle some of the more difficult waste products.

Using it to press used tyres had the potential to help the environment, as their disposal was a big issue.

The press has evolved from a mobile press McDowell built in the mid-1990s for baling hay.

He said the obstacles to bringing that machine to realistic field-operating standard became too demanding and he reached a point where he considered it more suited to industrial baling.

It became the prototype for the bigger industrial press he has spent the past 18 months developing.

Development has been at his own cost and refining the tying mechanism was one of the biggest challenges that had slowed the process down.

McDowell said the press had a distinct market advantage in that it applied pressure at both ends of the bale, rather than indirectly via a friction chamber, resulting in greater density per bale.

While it was difficult to get 26 tonnes of baled material in a shipping container, it was possible with this machine.

For that reason, the press had the potential to help assemble viable volumes of what were often difficult-to-market materials.