At any recycling facility, few machines are as essential as the baler—the workhorse that compacts and binds materials so they can be shipped and reused. At Sedona Recycles, we’ve relied on the same baler for the past eight years. Unfortunately, the model we purchased was the very last one ever sold before its manufacturer went out of business. That has left us without technical support or access to replacement parts, creating a constant uphill battle to keep it running. Thanks to the incredible skill and determination of our own miracle worker, Peter Hordorwich, we’ve managed to keep it alive far longer than anyone could have expected. But now, after years of patchwork fixes and sheer determination, our baler is at the end of its life. We urgently need a replacement.
What is a baler?
A baler is the backbone of any recycling facility. It’s the large machine that compresses recyclable materials—plastic, paper, cardboard, aluminum—into compact, uniform blocks called bales. (Think of the cubes Wall-E makes, only much larger!) At Sedona Recycles, materials travel up a conveyor belt before being compacted into dense blocks and tied with wire. These bales are then loaded onto trucks and shipped to vendors, who process them for reuse. Without this crucial step, recyclables could never make it from our bins back into new products.
Why is a Baler So Important to Sedona Recycles?
Quite simply: without a baler, we can’t operate. Every day at Sedona Recycles depends on this machine. Because our facility sits on a small property, we don’t have room to store loose recyclables for even a single day. The baler keeps materials moving and ensures our work doesn’t come to a standstill. To put it into perspective, we bale about 42,000 pounds of material each day—more than two million pounds each year.
The Problems with Our Current Baler
As you can imagine, after eight years of use (and no manufacturer support), our baler has developed serious issues:
- Obsolete software: No updates, no replacement parts, no technical support.
- Ram pin failure: A critical component is prone to breaking.
- Excessive wear on the platen: The part that does the actual compressing is deteriorating.
- Aging conveyor system: Still running on the system from our previous baler, which is nearly 25 years old.
- Worn baler floor: Years of heavy use have taken their toll.
Our Plan: Replacing the Baler
After years of patchwork fixes, it’s finally time to invest in a new baler that will serve Sedona Recycles for the next 15 to 20 years. The new model is already ordered, with delivery scheduled for this fall, and a down payment has been made to secure both the current price and the delivery timeline before potential tariffs could drive costs even higher.
The price tag for the baler itself is $293,000, with a required deposit of $88,710. On top of that, there are several significant additional expenses: roughly $1,000 for crane rental (to lift the baler into the building), about $22,000 for freight and installation, and an estimated $25,000–$30,000 in use tax. We will also need to upgrade our electrical system to properly support the new equipment and we are estimating $4-6,000 for that upgrade.
While the old baler will be returned to the manufacturer to be refurbished and resold, Sedona Recycles must cover the full upfront cost of this replacement. As a small nonprofit, we need to be mindful of our financial health. Depleting our reserves would leave us vulnerable, especially with the ongoing maintenance needs of our trucks, forklifts, and conveyor systems. For that reason, we are asking our community for support to minimize the amount we must finance.
Every contribution makes a difference. Whether it’s $10 or $10,000, your donation directly supports our ability to continue recycling more than two million pounds of material each year and to keep serving the Verde Valley with efficiency and care.
If you’d like to help, please consider making a donation at sedonarecycles.org/donate or by mailing a check to:
Sedona Recycles
2280 Shelby Drive
Sedona, AZ 86336
From all of us at Sedona Recycles: thank you for supporting our mission to care for the planet, one bale at a time.