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Pallet Waste: What Is The Best Way To Dispose Of It?

Written by HubSpot Author | Sep 22, 2022 8:57:18 AM

Pallet waste can be a complete nuisance. If you are a business that buys components or stock on pallets, they often end up being stacked in the corner of the yard, taking up valuable space, and creating a potential fire risk.

Your waste contractor may have provided a large skip or container to store them before being removed. Now the cost of regular emptying of the skip has increased so you’ve taken to stacking the pallets inside the container to maximize the space. You’ve got staff spending hours a week hand-loading pallets and you’d rather they were doing something else.

With energy costs rising and businesses trying to run as efficiently as possible, you want to focus on sales and making operational savings, what can you do?

What About Shredding?

There are pallet shredders, but they have drawbacks: you can only feed one pallet at a time which takes several minutes per pallet. Then there’s the double-handling: the pallet has to be taken to the shredder, fed in at the right angle, and then the shredded pallet material has to be taken to another container for disposal. That’s time-consuming. Maintenance is an issue too as the teeth on the shredder wear down quickly, in months sometimes, and they are very expensive to replace.

Can I Use A Compactor?

Not really.

A typical compactor doesn’t have the power to crush pallets which are rigid. They are designed for general waste and recyclables such as cardboard and plastic. Wooden pallets jam the mechanism. Even screw compactors have major problems with jamming and only work if single pallets are fed in at a particular angle. Screw compactors also require large motors up to 45kW to be able to work on wood waste. Even then, jamming issues don’t go away.

Bergmann Roll Packer

A sound way to save money on wood waste disposal for anyone with at least one container a week of wood and pallet waste is the Bergmann Roll Packer.

The Bergmann Static Roll Packer uses a 1.8-tonne spiked drum which rolls over the wood waste,
breaking it up, crushing it and maximizing the space in the container. Pallets, packing cases, or any wood waste can be tipped into the container with a fork truck or dropped in by hand. There is no single-pallet feeding at a particular angle and no double-handling. Press the start button and the rolling drum does the rest. There’s an automatic cycle so you can leave the machine to get on with the job while you do something else.

Typically, a container load of loose wood will weigh between one and two tonnes. The Bergmann Roll Packer will increase this to eight to ten tonnes. This will effectively reduce the number of collections by over 80%, saving you as much on the transport element of the disposal cost.

The Bergmann Roll Packer is the equipment of choice throughout the UK for compacting wood
waste in open containers. Local authorities and blue-chip companies like John Lewis and B&Q use the roll packer to keep their wood waste disposal costs under control. If you have at least one container of loose wood waste a week to dispose of, the Bergmann Roll Packer will save you money.

The spiked teeth on the drum will last for 5-10 years depending on usage so there’s no expensive maintenance. Not only that, but the new electric version uses 68% less electricity from a 4kW motor than the already efficient hydraulic version from a 5kW motor, so there’s no need to worry about energy costs.

There are three versions of the Bergmann Roll Packer: The Static for one container, the Traversing for multiple containers in a row, and the Mobile which is diesel-driven and can drive to containers wherever they are located on your site.

For more information go to https://www.bergmanndirect.co.uk/roll-packers