Member Article

Footwear manufacturer bales to boost environmental agenda

Footwear component manufacturer E A Tailby Ltd has strengthened its recycling agenda with the investment in a heavy duty waste baler from Riverside Waste Machinery.

The RWM450HD is being used to bale leather offcuts from the production of soles and heels. The bales are then shipped to Germany for recycling into regenerated leather products such as diary covers.

Established in 1902, this family-run business is no stranger to baling. This recycling practice has been a key part of on-site operations at E A Tailby’s Kettering facility for over 20 years. But the handling of 4-6mm thick leather is not always easy, and the company’s existing machine was struggling with the difficulty of the application and the throughputs required.

Director Steve Tailby therefore began the search for a new, more robust baler, that could tackle this material stream and produce four bales of 400kg and above, each week.

An audit of the marketplace brought Steve to Riverside. Managing director Jonathan Oldfield assessed E A Tailby’s needs and recommended the RWM450HD.

Steve explains: “The timescales became very urgent because, as I was investigating potential new suppliers, our existing baler broke down. However, I immediately struck up a rapport with Jonathan who quickly knew what would suit our requirements. He reacted quickly, under the time pressures we now faced, and ensured a quick turnaround.

“The baler now facilitates the ‘closed loop’ model we’re involved in with the reprocessing of leather in Germany, and we’ve got a much neater site because the machine has the capacity to handle the volume of offcuts we want to bale.”

Riverside is renowned for supplying cardboard balers and plastic balers, but the heavy duty models within the range can actually handle an array of tougher materials including leather, paint tins and more.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Katie Mallinson .