IBC ToteTexas

Reuse ledger, year to date: 41,200 totes diverted from Texas landfills this year. 2,060k lb of HDPE kept in service. 1,772k lb of steel cage recovered. 3,140 tons of CO₂e avoided. 92% of our wash water recycled on site. 68 Texas counties served from one Austin yard. Full methodology at /sustainability/reuse-ledger.

Deep reference · not in the main menu

48 points.
The list our
crew actually uses.

This is the intake checklist, published in full. Use it to grade stock you're buying, to audit a fleet you already own, or to specify precisely what you mean when you write 'inspected' into a purchase order.

Close-up of a single 275 gallon IBC tote showing its capacity label, UN placard and blue ball valve

The short answer

Six groups: cage and frame, bottle, valve and discharge, lid and closure, pallet base, and markings and documentation. Automatic rejects are cracked base-corner welds, bottle crazing or deformation at the outlet, fork entries that won't seat, and undocumented prior contents where the intended use requires knowing.

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From the yard

Rows of used 275 gallon composite IBC totes stacked two high in an outdoor yard under a blue sky
Graded stock on the outdoor rows, stacked two high and waiting on a grade tag.
Flatbed trailer loaded with two rows of IBC totes secured with straps, hooked to a blue tractor unit
Twenty on the floor of a 48-foot flatbed. Forty if they're empty.

Five-minute version

Cage base welds, bottle at the outlet, valve seat, lid gasket, pallet feet. That's the delivery-acceptance check and it catches most of the risk.

Full version

All 48 points. Used at intake grading, on fleet audits, and when buying a large batch sight-unseen.

Reject criteria

Cracked base-corner welds. Bottle crazing or deformation at the outlet. Fork entries that won't seat squarely. Undocumented prior contents where use requires it.

The checklist

Six groups

A

Cage & frame

10 points
  • Base corner welds intact, no cracking or prior repair
  • Top frame square, no deformation from stacking
  • Vertical members straight, no bowing
  • Horizontal members intact, no missing bars
  • No corrosion that has thinned tube wall
  • Galvanizing intact or corrosion arrested and coated
  • No sharp protrusions or cut ends
  • Cage seated correctly on the pallet base
  • Lifting points sound where present
  • No evidence of impact damage to a load-bearing member
B

Bottle

12 points
  • No crazing or stress whitening at the outlet flange
  • No deformation or bulging at the shoulder
  • No previous collapse or vacuum deformation
  • No punctures, cracks or heat damage
  • Wall thickness consistent to touch, no thin spots
  • Level strip readable, not fully opaque
  • Staining recorded and consistent with declared prior contents
  • No odour retention on opening
  • Interior free of residue, scale or sediment
  • No permeation indicators — swelling, softness, chemical smell
  • Neck threads undamaged
  • Fill opening round, not oval from over-tightening
C

Valve & discharge

8 points
  • Valve body free of cracks
  • Handle operates through full travel
  • Positive shutoff, no weeping under head
  • Outlet threads undamaged, correct standard identified
  • Gasket present, supple, correct compound for intended service
  • Valve correctly torqued, not cross-threaded
  • Outlet cap present
  • Valve type appropriate for intended product viscosity
D

Lid & closure

6 points
  • Lid present and correct diameter
  • Vented or solid identified and appropriate for intended use
  • Gasket present and supple
  • Threads undamaged on lid and neck
  • Seals fully without cross-threading
  • No previous over-tightening damage
E

Pallet base

6 points
  • All four fork entries clear and square
  • Feet intact, none broken or missing
  • Deck free of cracks, rot or delamination
  • Base type identified — composite, steel, plastic or wood
  • Steel frame free of corrosion that has thinned members
  • No wood on units intended for food service
F

Markings & documentation

6 points
  • UN plate present and legible where compliance is required
  • Design type code recorded
  • Build date recorded
  • Most recent test date recorded and within window
  • Prior contents declared in writing
  • Wash standard recorded and record attached

How to inspect efficiently

Work outside-in and bottom-up. Cage first, because a compromised frame ends the conversation before you look at anything else. Then the pallet, because it decides whether you can lift the thing at all. Then the bottle, then the fittings, then the paperwork.

Bring a flashlight. Most bottle defects are only visible with light behind or across the surface, and most cage weld cracks are in shadow at the base corners.

What crazing looks like

Fine, hair-like white lines in the HDPE, usually radiating from a stress point like the outlet flange or a moulding line. It means the polymer has been stressed past its limit and is the earliest visible warning of an eventual failure. On a tote you intend to fill with liquid, it is a reject.

What permeation smells like

Whatever was in it. A bottle that still smells of solvent after washing has absorbed the chemistry into the polymer wall, and no further washing will retrieve it. Those units go to rebottling or material recovery.

Grading from the checklist

Broadly: no defects and full documentation is F or A depending on prior contents. Sound with cosmetic marking is B. Sound with rust, dents and staining is C. Any structural defect in the cage base or bottle is X — material recovery. Full definitions are on the grades page.

Questions people actually ask

+Do I really need to check 48 things?
No. For a delivery acceptance, the five priority points cover most of the risk and take five minutes. The full list exists for intake grading, for fleet audits, and for anyone buying a large batch sight-unseen who wants to specify exactly what 'inspected' means.
+What's an automatic reject?
Cracked cage welds at the base corners, bottle crazing or deformation at the outlet, fork entries that won't accept forks squarely, and any evidence of prior contents that cannot be identified when the intended use requires knowing.
+Can I use this on totes I already own?
Yes, and you should. Run it as a monthly or quarterly walk on any fleet in service. Five minutes per unit catches essentially every failure before it becomes a spill.

Related

Next

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

Outlet thread

S60x6 — 60 mm coarse buttress. Not 2" NPT.

Grades published

N, R, F, A, B, C, X — applied at the wash bay.

Wash standards

W1 rinse through W4 caustic CIP at 160°F.

UN retest

Leakproofness 2.5 yrs, requalification 5 yrs.

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.

All 32 articles

On the yard this week

Rows of used 275 gallon composite IBC totes stacked two high in an outdoor yard under a blue sky
Graded stock on the outdoor rows, stacked two high and waiting on a grade tag.
Close-up of a single 275 gallon IBC tote showing its capacity label, UN placard and blue ball valve
A 275 with the plate, the capacity label and a standard 2-inch ball valve.

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.

Read the full FAQ

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.

+Can I buy a single tote?
Yes. Plenty of customers buy one for a garden, a workshop or a wash station. Pickup at the yard is the cheapest route for a single unit.
+What if the totes arrive worse than described?
Tell us within 48 hours with photos and we make it right: replacement, credit or collection. It happens rarely, because the person who grades a tote is the person who washed it.
+How much does a used IBC tote cost?
Used composite IBCs in Texas run from the low hundreds for rough jobsite stock up to most of the price of a new unit for documented food-grade or rebottled containers. Grade moves the price more than anything else — often by a factor of four across the same size.
+Are your totes NSF certified?
The resin in new and rebottled bottles meets FDA 21 CFR 177.1520. Container-level NSF/ANSI 61 certification is a manufacturer programme that does not carry over to reconditioned units. If your specification cites it, you need new containers and we'll tell you so.
+Are stained totes a problem?
Cosmetically yes, functionally usually not. Staining is a strong signal about prior contents, which is why stained units drop a grade, but a stained bottle holds liquid exactly as well as a clear one. It does make the level strip harder to read.

Buying a batch sight-unseen?

Write this checklist into the purchase order. Any seller who won't accept it as the acceptance standard has told you something useful.

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