Echo food shelf - Case Study

With a customer base of 350 families and up to 1000 individual people per week, the Echo Food Shelf is able to sustain their efforts by employing 3.75 people, 200 regular volunteers, and various people who need to fulfill their service learning or community service hours.

Recycling Equipment – M60MD Vertical Baler

Challenge:

The Echo Food Shelf realized that it needed more sophisticated recycling equipment to manage its overflow of cardboard boxes. The food shelf accumulated large quantities of boxes that could not be reused for food orders due to shape, size, condition, or because they were previously used to haul meat and eggs. The boxes took up floor space, required significant employee time to manage, and wasted valuable potential revenue as garbage. They needed a practical, affordable, and immediate recycling solution for these commodities. Because capital expenses prevented the purchase of this necessary equipment, Echo found itself in a bit of a quandary.

Solution:

Having heard of their plight, Harmony joined the fight against hunger and donated a used M60MD vertical baler to the food shelf. The M60MD is a high-capacity vertical baler that fits under a standard ceiling. It has several safety features that allow its uniform 60” bales to be compacted, tied, and ejected from the front of the baler with ease. It was the perfect solution for the needs of the food shelf.

“As our program has grown, we find that space is more and more limited and the baler reduces the amount of space needed to hold cardboard until pick up day. It also reduces our waste management costs as we are actually paid by the pound for our cardboard refuse instead of just paying to have it hauled away.”