Industrial balers compact material into bales for improved handling, transportation, disposal, storage, or secondary processing. Some industrial balers have integrated shearing capabilities (shear-balers). Others can tie or wrap bales automatically. There are two basic types of baling equipment: vertical and horizontal. Vertical balers are designed to compress dry waste such as cardboard, plastics, or polythene. They have a relatively small footprint, but feature sturdy designs at relatively low costs. Horizontal balers are designed for continuous operations and high-volume applications. They can be fed by hand, or via mechanical or pneumatic systems. Large hopper openings permit the direct loading of materials such as cardboard, secondary fibers, paper stock, aluminum cans, steel cans, and plastic containers. Horizontal balers do not require shredding and are available in either closed or open-end configurations.

Most industrial balers are powered by an electric motor that uses three-phase power and operates at 208, 230, or 460 VAC. Rollers and lateral guides control the movement of the ram. Performance specifications for industrial balers include capacity, bore size, ram force, platen force, cycle time, system pressure, and control voltage. Both vertical balers and horizontal balers use hydraulic systems that are designed to minimize heat generation and energy losses. Equipment with submerged pumps have fewer pipe connections and a reduced risk of leakage. Industrial balers that use a programmable logic controller (PLC) feature a control panel that displays information such as bale length, number of bales, operating time, and system errors. Dimensional data for industrial balers includes equipment width, depth and height; feed height; load opening size; and bale width, depth, height and weight.

Industrial balers differ in terms of applications and approvals. Products are used by printers, corrugated box manufacturers, paper converters, envelope plants, non-woven converters, and recyclers of aluminum cans and plastic bottles. Specialized hydraulic balers are used with hard-to-bale products such as folding cartons, coated stocks, chipboard, boxboard, and some types of cardboard. Baling presses are designed to process foam rubber, burlap bags, medical waste, vinyl sheets and trim, and non-woven filaments and fiber. Shear bailers, log bailers and densifiers are also available. In terms of approvals, some horizontal balers and vertical balers comply with specifications from the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Others bear the UL Mark from Underwriters Laboratories (UL) on specific electrical, mechanical, and hydraulic components.