Photo Courtesy of Sebright Products, Inc.

While balers and compactors appear to be interchangeable, they do have some slight differences. Both processes are often used by industrial manufacturers and retail management to increase space and make the items easily equipped for transportation when necessary. True, they are both used to compact materials in very similar ways, but their overall functions do vary. Compactors tend to focus primarily on waste management, while baling is able to include a larger variety of tasks. Not only do balers compact the products, they also bind the materials. Baling tasks can include recycling, agriculture, and textiles along with waste management.

Compactors can, and often times are used to compact recyclable material, but their main goal is to compact waste products. They are primarily concerned with reducing waste management costs by compacting the various materials that are to be disposed. The garbage and waste will eventually be transported to landfills, and by compacting they are able to make various items smaller allowing them to take up as little space as possible. This makes more room in landfills, and less space taken up on our planet simply to store our garbage.

Balers on the other hand, can be used for trash compacting, recycling and agriculture. They can also be used for a variety of other materials such as textiles, cardboard and even steel. Their main goal is not only to crush the materials, but to bind them as well. They compact and bind the material, or “bale” the material so that it is less costly and more space efficient for traveling purposes. In many cases, balers are used to compact and bind with twine, as in the cases of hay bales or cardboard bales. While compactors mainly transport to landfills, balers typically go to recycling plants or other farms. Often the balers are used to bale hay and other items for their own farm animals and customers, making it unnecessary to move them far at all.