What Recycled Materials Can Be Baled?

In 2023 the EU recycled or composted 48% of its municipal waste, according to Eurostat, up from 37% in 2013. Much of that material travels from collection points to recycling plants as bales.

We use balers to minimise waste and compress recyclable materials. We compact these recyclable items into dense, more manageable bales for transporting recycled materials.

Materials that are generally baled include aluminium, carton, paper, non-ferrous metals and all types of plastics.

However, before you start baling materials, you must have an idea of the materials that can endure the whole baling process.

Are you looking for a recycling baler but are unsure what recycled materials you can use? Our guide explains everything you need to know.

What is baled material?

Baled material is loose recyclable waste, such as cardboard, plastic film, metal cans or textiles, that a baler has compressed into a dense rectangular block and tied with wire or strapping. The bale can then be stored, stacked, weighed and shipped as one unit instead of as loose waste.

Recyclers and mills prefer to buy material in bales because a clean, single-grade bale of known weight is easier to grade, load and price. Depending on the material and the machine, a single bale weighs anywhere from about 20 kg to 850 kg; our guide on how much a bale weighs breaks this down by material and baler size.

You will also see the spelling “bailed material”. It means the same thing; the correct industry term is baled.

Which recycled materials can be baled?

Most dry, compressible recyclables can be baled: paper and cardboard, beverage cartons, plastic film and rigid plastics, aluminium and steel cans, non-ferrous scrap, textiles and tyres. Each stream needs the right baler and should be baled as a separate grade, because mixed bales sell for less or get rejected.

Material	Typical baler	What to watch for
Cardboard (OCC) and paper	Vertical baler for smaller volumes, horizontal channel baler for high volumes	Keep it dry and free of plastic film, wax-coated board and food residue. See how cardboard is recycled and baled.
Beverage and food cartons	Vertical or horizontal baler	Bale them separately from cardboard: cartons are a distinct paper grade (liquid packaging board) and lower the value of a cardboard bale.
Plastic film and stretch wrap	Vertical or horizontal baler	Film must be clean and separated from rigid plastics and labels. Read our plastic baling guide for PET, film and HDPE.
PET bottles and HDPE containers	Horizontal baler with high pressing force	Bottles spring back after compression, so they need more force or a longer cycle than film. Sort by resin type.
Aluminium and steel cans	Can baler or heavy-duty vertical baler	Cans must be empty; pressurised aerosols are a safety risk. See aluminium can balers.
Non-ferrous and light ferrous scrap	Scrap metal baler or shear baler	Separate ferrous from non-ferrous metals before baling. More in our guide to scrap metal balers.
Textiles and clothing	Vertical clothing baler	Keep reusable garments apart from recycling grades and protect bales from moisture.
Tyres	Dedicated tyre baler	Whole tyres need very high force and strong ties; tyre bales are often used in civil engineering.

Recyclable products are often collected in two ways. We use kerbside ‘sort’ systems in which the recyclables get thrown into their respective product bin.

Not to state the obvious but, after recycling the reusable products above, whatever remains is proper rubbish.

Many businesses and households will put this out for collection by municipal or private garbage collectors.

That collection by municipal or private garbage collectors is of all mixed rubbish, which is then taken to the processing facility and sorted.

After sorting the remaining garbage is taken to landfills for disposal.

They will process all mixed recycling at the manufacturing plant and divide it into various categories of materials.

They do this by hand or machine, or both until it’s shipped to the suppliers that turn it into new items.

Recycled items are processed and sorted and become valuable commodities in the global market.

1. Products made of paper

Paper and cardboard are the largest single material in European packaging waste: 32.3 million tonnes, or 40.4% of all packaging waste generated in the EU in 2023, according to Eurostat.

Paper is also one of the most recycled materials, because paper mills can turn clean, well-sorted bales straight back into pulp. Before baling, it pays to sort and prepare the material by grade.

Any commodity we bale that is from paper, such as comics, books, magazines, cartons, or even newspapers, is recyclable.

The paper composition makes it vulnerable to the crushing procedure that the baling process provides.

Cardboard, which is originally in the shape of paper boards, can go through the folding process.

The new folding process could shape these cardboard boxes into new ones and used for many uses.

Newspapers catch air between their pages, and baling significantly reduces this extra air weight through compression.

2. Paper cartons

Food and drinking cartons are one of the most convenient products available. They are primarily made from paper, a natural resource from well-maintained forests.

As a lightweight product solution, cartons have a low environmental impact.

Two types of cartons are available:

• Shelf-stable: consists of an average of 74 per cent paper, 22 per cent polyethylene and 4 per cent aluminium. These are on supermarket shelves and used for water, milk, juice, beans, soups, wine and healthy shakes,
• Refrigeration cartons: these contain roughly 80% paper and 20% polyethene. These are in the supermarket’s chilling part and used for the packaging of milk, soda, cream, and other drinks.

As in any other items, they process these cartons and bale them at the processing centre. Thereafter, they deliver the bales to the recycling centres.

They recycle cartons at paper mills. They remove the fibre and sort them in a process using a hydra pulper, which looks like a giant cooking blender.

They use the pulp that falls out in the production of paper products.

Cartons are also used to make everyday items such as toilet tissue, paper towels, and other writing paper.

3. Electronic waste

Electronic waste, also known as e-waste or e-scrap, refers to garbage created from damaged and outdated electronic devices, such as computers, televisions, scanners, printers, etc.

The composition of E-waste is of various components, such as:

• gold
• silver
• copper
• platinum
• palladium
• lithium
• cobalt.

A figure widely attributed to the US Environmental Protection Agency puts the gold content of one metric tonne of circuit boards at 40 to 800 times that of one tonne of mined ore, and the copper content at 30 to 40 times.

These precious products can be removed and recycled.

With the rapid growth in technology and the use of tech devices, e-waste is a major source of rubbish.

Like home garbage, the increasing volume of e-waste will have a significant carbon footprint on our planet.

E-waste includes a lengthy list of substances that are toxic to humans and the environment, such as:

• mercury
• lead
• beryllium
• brominated flame retardants
• cadmium

If mishandling of e-waste happens while dumping, these chemicals wind up seeping into our ground, water, and even in the air.

The only way to get rid of electronic waste safely is to send it to a licensed recycling facility. Batteries, especially lithium-ion cells, must be removed before any e-waste fraction is compacted or baled, because a crushed cell can ignite.

In February 2021 the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the EU’s new Circular Economy Action Plan, aiming for a carbon-neutral, toxic-free and fully circular economy by 2050.

The resolution called on the European Commission to set binding 2030 targets for materials use and consumption footprint, along with stricter rules on product design and recycled content.

4. Non-ferrous metals

Non-ferrous metals contain no iron elements in them, such as aluminium, copper, nickel, tin and lead, amongst many others.

In addition to saving primary materials, copper recycling saves a very large amount of Carbon dioxide leakage and power.

Recycling saves approximately 65 per cent of CO2 emissions and 85 per cent of energy needs relative to primary copper production.

The gain is even larger for aluminium: according to the International Aluminium Institute, recycling saves about 95% of the energy needed for primary aluminium production. For a deeper look at the metals that can be recycled again and again, see aluminium and steel as infinitely recyclable metals.

5. Plastic recycling

Plastic is everywhere! But very little is done to control plastic waste after the materials have been discarded.

Of all the plastic waste generated worldwide up to 2015, only about 9% was recycled, 12% was incinerated and 79% ended up in landfills or the natural environment, according to Geyer, Jambeck and Law (Science Advances, 2017).

 

 

The baling of plastics is required because they exist in various shapes and sizes. This makes it a required step before they are re-used and remoulded into other objects.

Since they are vulnerable to continuous moulding, they tend to hold and collect air and produce air gaps within their composition.

That makes compression a must before the plastic is reused. Also after the baling process, plastics maintain their quality.

6. Tyres and rubber materials

Baling tyres is not a simple operation because whole tyres resist compression, but a dedicated tyre baler can press them into dense, tightly tied blocks that are easy to store and transport.

In the UK, tyre bales intended for construction use are made to the PAS 108 specification, which sets their size at roughly 1.6 x 1.2 x 0.7 m and requires wire ties that hold the bale together over its service life.

Another benefit is, in addition to the previously mentioned, tyres help in the production of fuels and the manufacture of synthetic rubber and civil engineering services.

7. Baling textiles

Textile recycling is a method by which recycled clothes and other textiles are collected to re-use or recover materials. That is the foundation of the garment recycling industry.

The steps in the textile recycling process include:

• the donation,
• the storage
• the sorting
• the processing
• the baling of textiles
• the eventual transport of the recycled clothing, rags or other reclaimed materials to end-users.

Baling textiles is really simple since they can fold into smaller sizes in their natural state very easily.

Textile recycling has the following environmental benefits:

• Decreases the criteria for landfill sites, keeping in mind that synthetic fibre products do not decompose and that natural fibres can release greenhouse gases
• Avoidance of using a virgin fibre
• Reduced oil and water use
• Pollution prevention
• Reduced demand for dyes

Since 1 January 2025, every EU member state has had to collect textiles separately under the revised Waste Framework Directive (EU) 2018/851. Larger volumes of collected clothing mean more sorting centres need balers that produce compact, moisture-protected bales. Read more about what happens to clothing waste.

Awareness of the risks of sending old textiles to landfill keeps growing among consumers, retailers and regulators.

And, as advanced recycling technologies emerge, one can expect that the textile recycling industry will continue to expand.

What should not go into a baler?

Anything that can explode, ignite, leak or shatter under pressure should stay out of a baler. That includes pressurised aerosol cans and gas cylinders, batteries (especially lithium-ion), containers with chemical or oil residues, glass and wet food waste.

Glass shatters instead of compressing and is normally crushed, not baled. Wet organic waste rots inside the bale and contaminates paper and plastic grades. Mixing different materials in one bale is not dangerous, but it lowers the price the recycler will pay or gets the load rejected.

Frequently asked questions

What does baled mean in recycling?

In recycling, baled means that loose material has been compressed by a baler into a dense block and tied with wire or straps. Baled cardboard, plastic or metal takes up a fraction of the space of the loose material and can be handled with a forklift.

Can you bale different materials in the same baler?

Yes, many balers can process several materials, for example cardboard and plastic film, but only one material per bale. Bale one grade, tie it off and switch materials before the next bale. Our comparison of horizontal and vertical balers explains which machine suits mixed streams.

Is baled material worth more than loose material?

Yes, in most cases recyclers pay more for clean, single-grade bales than for loose material. Dense bales cost less to transport per tonne and are ready for processing, which is why higher bale density cuts transport costs.

Don’t throw away, recycle!

Knowledge of the correct baling recycled materials will ensure that your participating activities are constructive and more coordinated.

It also helps you choose the right baler for each stream instead of one machine that handles every material poorly.

Some people call waste collection firms to get rid of their garbage. Very few people, however, have any idea what happens to this waste.

If you are thinking of going into the recycling business and need specific baling machines, why not contact us!

We manufacture a wide range of bale presses for compaction of all kinds of waste materials and their feed conveyors, to your specifications.

Fill in the questionnaire on our website with your baling wishes, which will give us a good platform for further discussions about what suitable equipment is good for you!