SWANN, the Solid Waste Agency of Northwest Nebraska, moved closer last night to getting a new garbage baler and a new building to house it.
The SWANN board held a required public hearing on the proposal and passed a resolution declaring the need to replace the existing baler as an emergency, allowing it to skip competitive bidding and go with a Colorado firm.
     SWANN Executive Director Jake Stewart says the 1960s model baler originally purchased by the city of Chadron and the building it’s in have both reached the end of their useful lives and only extraordinary repair efforts are keeping the baler running.
SWANN has been working and negotiating with Altitude Recycling Equipment of Denver, the baler manufacturer closest to Chadron. Stewart says even with the prior input, it will be at least 7 months before a new baler would be ready for installation.
Tyler Francis of Altitude told the SWANN board the lead time for the baler is likely 35-to-40 months with the price changing as the price of metal goes up, explaining the company’s costs have risen 40% in the past 2 years.
Francis said there’s a baler of the same model SWANN will get currently in use in Omaha while Kearney and Greeley, CO, use a slightly smaller one. He put the expected lifespan at 15 years, but said it could easily be 25 depending on multiple factors.
Jake Stewart says the new baler will be considerably larger than the current one because of the ever increasing volume of waste coming into the baler.
Stewart says the baler’s longer conveyor belt will also make it easier to pull out recyclables, but also means the new building needs to be bigger, too.
The new baler building will be across the street from the current one and north of the SWANN offices,
The Chadron City Council has given unofficial approval to the idea of providing the land for the building, but no decisions have been made on the exact amount of land or the terms of a lease or transfer.