Company · the yard
Twelve acres,
eight zones,
one direction
of travel.
Everything on this site happens at 3505 Montopolis Dr, Austin, TX 78744. Nothing is subcontracted, nothing is brokered, and a container arriving on Monday is usually graded and racked by Wednesday.
The short answer
A tote entering the yard passes through declaration, structural inspection, the wash pad, and grading — diverting to rebottling, fabrication or material recovery at whichever gate it fails. The operator who washes a unit assigns its grade. Roughly 92% of the wash water is recovered on site.
From the yard
12
acres
Southeast Austin, off Montopolis Drive.
8
operating zones
Intake to load-out.
48h
typical intake to racked
Rebottling adds a few days.
92%
wash water recovered
Closed-loop since 2019.
The walk
Eight zones, in order
A container moves left to right through this list. Where it exits determines what we can honestly sell it as.
Intake & declaration
Everything enters here with a prior-contents declaration. Food product goes left to the covered lane; chemical and industrial go right to general stock; undeclared goes straight to recovery. This gate is the reason our food-grade claim means something.
Structural inspection
Cage welds, base corners, bottle integrity, valve seat, pallet feet. Sound units continue; compromised bottles with straight cages divert to rebottling; failed cages become fabrication stock or material recovery.
The wash pad
Five standards from a cold rinse to a caustic clean-in-place at 160°F. Closed-loop filtration recovers most of the water. Food-lane units run on dedicated equipment that never touches chemical stock.
Rebottling line
Cages stripped, inspected, straightened on a press, corroded members replaced, galvanizing restored. New bottle seated and torqued, new valve and lid fitted, unit leak-tested and requalified where marked.
Fabrication bay
Saws, deburring, edge capping and a welder. Open-top conversions, splits, planters, ports, manifolds, skid frames, grounding lugs and fleet marking. Mostly fed by units that would otherwise have been granulated.
Grading & racking
The operator who washed the unit assigns the grade, writes it on the intake tag, and racks it by grade. What is on the tag is what goes on the quote and what arrives on your truck.
Material recovery
Bottles cut and granulated, cages sheared and baled, pallets separated by material. Nothing serviceable enters this zone — it is the last stop, not a shortcut.
Load-out & customer pickup
Two forklifts, a moffett-equipped truck and enough turning room for a tractor-trailer. Customer pickup happens here too, and we load you at no charge.
Four gates
Where the decisions get made
Every container passes the same four decision points. Nothing is decided later, on a phone call, under pressure from a customer.
- STEP 01
Gate 1 — Declaration
Prior contents in writing or the unit does not enter the food lane. No exceptions, including for customers we have known for a decade.
- STEP 02
Gate 2 — Structural
Cage base welds, bottle at the outlet, valve seat, pallet feet. Fail here and the unit diverts rather than being sold with a caveat.
- STEP 03
Gate 3 — Wash standard
Set by the exit grade, not by convenience or by what the line is already set up for. Food-grade stock gets W4, always.
- STEP 04
Gate 4 — Grade & tag
Assigned by the operator who did the work, written on the tag, racked by grade. That tag is the quote and the delivery.
Water
The closed loop
Washing containers could easily be a water-intensive business. A thorough wash consumes 65 to 110 gallons depending on standard, and at our volume that would be an indefensible number in a state that spends most summers in drought.
The pad runs closed-loop filtration: solids settle out in a series of traps, water is filtered and returned to the wash cycle, and only what cannot be recycled is treated and discharged under permit. Recovery averages 92% across the year — higher on W1 and W2, lower on W4, where potable rinse water cannot be recycled back into the food lane.
It went in during 2019 and it is the single capital investment we would make again first.
Equipment
What's on site
| Equipment | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Heated wash pad, 4 bays | W1 through W5 standards |
| Recirculating caustic CIP unit | Food-lane W4 washing |
| Closed-loop filtration plant | Wash water recovery |
| Cage press | Straightening deformed frames |
| MIG welding station | Member replacement, lugs, skid frames |
| Rebottling line | Bottle fitting, torque, leak test |
| Fabrication saws & deburring | Cuts, ports, second-life builds |
| Granulator | HDPE material recovery |
| Shear and baler | Steel cage recovery |
| Two counterbalance forklifts | Yard handling |
| Moffett-equipped flatbed | Deliveries to sites with no forklift |
| Covered food-grade bay | Isolated food-lane storage |
Visiting
We are at 3505 Montopolis Dr, Austin, TX 78744, in the industrial pocket between the airport, the river and the old Del Valle line — about six minutes from the Highway 71 and Ben White interchange, and close enough to SH-130 that a flatbed can be in Bastrop within half an hour.
Yard hours are Mon–Thu 7:30a–5p · Fri 7:30a–4p · Sat 8a–12p · Sun closed (Central Time). Bring:
- A truck or trailer that takes a 48 × 40 inch pallet
- Ratchet straps — we do not supply them
- Closed-toe shoes; it is a working yard with forklifts moving
We load with a forklift at no charge. Sending the form first means your stock is pulled and staged before you arrive, which usually saves half an hour.
What you can look at
The grading rows, all of them. Walk the stock, pick your own units, ask why one tote is B and the one beside it is C. For first-time buyers this is genuinely the fastest way to understand what our published grades mean in practice.
What you can't
The wash pad and rebottling line while they are running, for the obvious reasons — caustic at 160°F and a moving press are not tour attractions. If you have a genuine process reason to see them, ask and we will arrange it properly.
Questions people actually ask
+Can I visit the yard?
+Why is food-grade stock kept separately?
+What happens to the wash water?
+How long does a tote take to move through?
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.
- Reconditioning · June 8, 2021 · 4 minInside a Caustic Clean-in-Place CycleSix stages, 110 gallons of water, 160 degrees and a piece of paper. Here's each part and why it's there.
- Reconditioning · May 30, 2023 · 3 minSecond-Life Builds: What a Cut Container BecomesOne tote, two raised beds, and a galvanized trellis frame that came free with them.
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?
+What's the difference between Grade A and food grade?
+Do you offer volume discounts?
+How do I stop algae growing in a water tote?
Walk the rows yourself.
3505 Montopolis Dr, Austin, TX 78744. Mon–Thu 7:30a–5p · Fri 7:30a–4p · Sat 8a–12p · Sun closed (Central Time). No appointment, no salesperson, and we'll load you for free.