Company
We started because
breweries were paying
to throw away
perfectly good tanks.
Fourteen years later it is twelve acres on Montopolis Drive, roughly 41,200 containers a year, and the same basic observation: the container already exists, and manufacturing another one is the worst available option.
The short answer
IBC Tote Texas LLC has operated from 3505 Montopolis Dr, Austin, TX 78744 since 2011. We buy, wash, grade, rebottle, fabricate and re-sell intermediate bulk containers, running every step in-house rather than brokering, and we publish our grading system, our wash standards and our diversion figures so all three can be checked.
From the yard
15
years on the same site
Since 2011.
12
acres in southeast Austin
Intake, wash, rebottle, fabricate.
3,400
containers on the ground
Typical standing inventory.
68
Texas counties served
On scheduled routes.
History
How it actually happened
No pivot, no funding round, no rebrand. A gravel pad, a pressure washer and fourteen years of adding one capability at a time.
2011
One trailer, one idea
Started collecting empty totes from Austin breweries and food producers who were paying to dump them. Washed them on a gravel pad off Montopolis Drive with a pressure washer and sold them out of the back of a gooseneck.
2013
The first wash bay
Built a proper wash bay with heated water and drainage, which meant we could take on food-grade work and stop guessing about what 'clean' meant. This is also when the first version of our grading system got written on a whiteboard.
2015
Grading published
Put the grade definitions on paper and started printing them on intake tags. Customers stopped arguing about condition almost immediately, which was not the reason we did it but was a very welcome result.
2017
Rebottling line
Started fitting new bottles into reconditioned cages. It changed the economics of the whole yard — suddenly a tote with a ruined bottle and a straight cage was an asset rather than scrap.
2019
Closed-loop wash water
Installed filtration and recirculation on the wash pad. Recovery has run around 92% since. In a state that spends most summers in drought, this stopped being optional some time before we did it.
2021
The February freeze
Uri emptied the yard in four days. Water totes went out to communities, contractors and neighbours faster than we could wash them. We now hold a reserve tier specifically for weather events, because we never want to run out like that again.
2023
Statewide routes
Formalised consolidated routes to San Antonio, Houston, DFW, the Coastal Bend and the Permian. Consolidation is the only reason a four-tote order to San Antonio makes financial sense for anybody.
2025
The ledger, published
Started publishing disposition figures and the method behind them — including the roughly 1% of containers we cannot save. Anyone can claim to be sustainable. We would rather be argued with.
How we operate
Four things we decided early and have not changed
Publish the grades
Written definitions, printed on intake tags, referenced on every quote. It removes our own room to manoeuvre, which is the point.
Grade at the wash bay
The operator who washed the unit assigns the grade. Not a salesperson, not from a photograph, not after the customer has asked for a discount.
Recommend the cheaper option
If Grade B does the job, we say so, even when we have food-grade stock sitting there. Selling somebody the expensive answer works exactly once.
Work in writing
No phone number. Everything by email, so every commitment is recorded and nothing evaporates between the office and the yard.
What we're actually in business to do
The composite IBC is an unusually good object. It is engineered for repeated handling, its steel cage has a twenty-year service life, and its only genuinely consumable part is a bottle that can be swapped in minutes. Almost nothing else in industrial packaging is that well suited to being used again.
For decades most of them were used once and buried anyway, not because anyone decided that was correct but because nobody had built the route back. Forward logistics pays; reverse logistics is nobody's job.
That gap is the whole business. Everything we do — buying empties, publishing grades, running consolidated routes, rebottling, cutting planters out of stained bottles — is an attempt to attach enough economic value to the return trip that it happens on its own.
What we are not
Not a broker. Not carbon neutral. Not audited. Not a hazardous waste contractor. Not able to issue manufacturer-level certifications like NSF/ANSI 61, and not willing to imply otherwise. Every one of those limits is stated on the pages where it matters, because finding out during an audit is a bad way to learn it.
Where the name came from
There isn't a story. It says what we sell and where we are, which after fourteen years still seems like the correct amount of branding for a company with a forklift.
Questions people actually ask
+Why don't you publish a phone number?
+Are you a broker or do you handle the containers?
+How big is the operation?
+Do you serve residential customers?
More about us
Elsewhere
Quick reference
Numbers worth having open in another tab
The figures that come up in almost every conversation, whichever page you arrived on.
275 gallon · 1040 L
48×40×46
- Tare
- 130 lb
- Gross, water
- 2,425 lb
- Stack full
- 2 high
- Stock
- Always in stock
330 gallon · 1250 L
48×40×53
- Tare
- 160 lb
- Gross, water
- 2,915 lb
- Stack full
- 2 high
- Stock
- Always in stock
264 gallon · 1000 L
48×40×46
- Tare
- 125 lb
- Gross, water
- 2,325 lb
- Stack full
- 2 high
- Stock
- Usually in stock
350 gallon · 1325 L
48×40×56
- Tare
- 175 lb
- Gross, water
- 3,095 lb
- Stack full
- 2 high
- Stock
- Order in
From the yard notes
Longer reading on this
32 articles written by the people who wash, grade, weld and dispatch. No marketing copy in any of them.
- Logistics · June 16, 2022 · 3 minWhat a Flatbed Load of Totes Teaches You About SecurementTwo rows of ten, stringers fore and aft, strapped over the cage rail. Everything else is a way to fold a cage.
- Buying · July 25, 2023 · 3 minBuying Used Containers Without Getting Burned: Four QuestionsFour questions, asked by email, before any money moves. The quality of the answers tells you more than the price does.
- Buying · January 19, 2022 · 4 minGrade A Is Not Food Grade, and the Difference Costs Real MoneyThe most abused phrase in the used-container business, and the three things that have to be true before anyone should use it.
On the yard this week
More answers
While you're here
Pulled from the full FAQ, which runs to forty-plus answers across buying, grades, food safety, sizes, selling, compliance, delivery and care.
- Where we are
- 3505 Montopolis Dr, Austin, TX 78744
- Yard hours
- Mon–Thu 7:30a–5p · Fri 7:30a–4p · Sat 8a–12p · Sun closed (Central Time)
- Coverage
- 68 Texas counties on scheduled routes, from one Austin yard.
+What about totes with product still in them?
+What about allergen control?
+How much does a full 275 gallon tote weigh?
+What makes a used tote food grade?
+What if the totes arrive worse than described?
Come and see the yard.
3505 Montopolis Dr, Austin, TX 78744, Mon–Thu 7:30a–5p · Fri 7:30a–4p · Sat 8a–12p · Sun closed (Central Time). Walk the rows, pick your own units, and decide for yourself whether our grades mean anything.