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.

Service · material recovery

Recycling is
what we do
when we’ve failed.

Every tote we granulate is a container we could not keep in service. That is not a triumph, it is the last honest option — and it is still infinitely better than a composite IBC sitting in a landfill cell holding its full volume forever.

Tote wash line under a canopy with a recycling sign reading clean, recondition, reuse, spraying a used IBC tote

The short answer

When a tote genuinely cannot be reused or rebottled, we separate it: HDPE bottle granulated into post-industrial recyclate, steel cage and frame baled for the mill, pallet base recovered by material. We supply a recycling manifest on request. Nothing serviceable goes to landfill.

Arrange material recovery

Tell us how many units, roughly what condition, and where they are. We'll tell you whether it's a payment, break-even or a fee.

We reply here, so it has to be an inbox you actually read.

US or Canadian number, 10 digits. We format it as you type.

Two-letter code or full name — checked against your postal code.

5-digit US ZIP, or a Canadian postal code like K1A 0B1.

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No phone number required from us — we work by email and we answer fast. Fields marked * are required.

From the yard

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.
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.

50 lb

HDPE per tote

Single-resin, comparatively clean stream.

43 lb

steel per cage

Baled and sent to the mill.

63 cu ft

landfill volume per tote

Composite IBCs do not compact.

2.06M

lb HDPE diverted / yr

Reused first, recovered second.

Hierarchy

Four options, in order of preference

A tote arriving at our gate is assessed against these in sequence. It only descends when the option above genuinely fails.

  1. STEP 01

    1. Reuse whole

    Wash, grade, resell. Keeps 100% of the container's function and the entire embodied energy of every component. This is the goal and it captures the majority of what we take in.

  2. STEP 02

    2. Rebottle

    Bottle is finished but the cage and pallet have years left. Replace one part, keep roughly two thirds of the embodied energy in service.

  3. STEP 03

    3. Second life

    Structurally sound but commercially unsellable — stained, cosmetically rough, wrong size. Cut into beds, bins, planters and containment. Another decade of use, zero reprocessing energy.

  4. STEP 04

    4. Material recovery

    Granulate the HDPE, bale the steel, recover the pallet. Keeps the material in the economy but loses the container. The last option, and still far better than burial.

Streams

Where each material goes

End-of-life material streams
ComponentMassProcessDestination
HDPE bottle≈ 50 lbCut, washed, granulated to flake or pelletPost-industrial recyclate into moulding and extrusion
Steel cage & frame≈ 43 lbStripped, sheared, baledScrap steel mill — one of the most recycled materials on earth
Composite pallet≈ 26 lbSeparated into steel frame and plastic deckBoth streams recovered separately
Plastic pallet≈ 22 lbGranulated with the bottle stream where resin matchesPost-industrial recyclate
Wood pallet≈ 38 lbDeck separated, groundMulch and biomass; steel frame baled
Valve, lid, hardware≈ 4 lbSound units recovered as spares; rest granulatedSpares inventory or recyclate

Reuse against recycling, honestly

Recycling has excellent public relations and mediocre arithmetic. Granulating an HDPE bottle recovers the polymer but consumes energy to collect, wash, granulate, transport and re-mould it — and the resulting recyclate is typically worth a fraction of virgin resin and cannot go back into a pressure-rated food container.

Reuse skips all of it. A washed tote back in service required a wash cycle and a truck ride. Nothing was melted, nothing was downgraded, and the container is still a container.

Our own figures put reuse at roughly 152 lb of CO₂e avoided per unit against manufacturing a replacement. Recycling the same unit avoids a much smaller share, because you still have to manufacture a new container from the recovered material. That gap is the entire argument for this company existing, and it is laid out in full on the sustainability page.

What we cannot accept

  • Totes containing residual regulated or hazardous waste
  • Units whose prior contents cannot be identified at all and which show contamination
  • Loads mixed with non-tote waste — we are not a general waste contractor
  • Anything requiring a licensed hazardous waste transporter

In those cases we will tell you what kind of contractor you actually need. Sending you somewhere else is cheaper for everyone than accepting a load we should not have.

Manifests and reporting

If your organisation reports on waste diversion, ask for a manifest with the collection. It records unit counts, material streams and destinations in a format that survives an audit, and it costs nothing. Our own year-to-date totals are published on the reuse ledger.

Questions people actually ask

+Do you charge to take end-of-life totes?
It depends on condition and volume. Batches with recoverable cages usually carry a payment to you. Batches that are entirely material recovery are often break-even. Genuinely difficult loads — contaminated, mixed, hard to access — can carry a fee, and we'll tell you the number before we send a truck.
+Can you take totes with residual product?
Rinsed and drained only. We are not a hazardous waste disposal facility and cannot accept regulated waste. If your totes still hold product, you need a licensed disposal contractor — we'll say so rather than take a load we shouldn't.
+Do you provide recycling manifests?
Yes, on request. It records unit count, material streams and destinations, which is what most ESG and corporate sustainability reporting actually needs.
+What happens to the HDPE?
It's granulated and sold into manufacturing as post-industrial recyclate. Composite IBC bottles are a comparatively clean, single-resin stream, which makes them more valuable than most mixed post-consumer plastic.
+Isn't recycling good enough on its own?
It's the last resort, not the goal. Granulating a bottle recovers the material and loses the container. Reuse keeps 100% of the function; recycling keeps maybe a third of the value. We recycle only what genuinely cannot be reused.

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

Tote wash line under a canopy with a recycling sign reading clean, recondition, reuse, spraying a used IBC tote
The wash pad. Every unit gets a named standard, and the water goes back round.
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.

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.

+What are standard IBC tote dimensions?
48 inches long by 40 inches wide — one standard pallet position — with height varying by capacity: 46 in for 275 gallons, 53 in for 330, 56 in for 350.
+How do I tell if a used tote is sound?
Check five points: cage welds at the base corners, the bottle around the outlet, the valve seat, the lid gasket and the pallet feet. Those account for nearly every problem we see at intake. The 48-point inspection checklist covers the systematic version.
+Can I inspect before buying?
Yes, and we encourage it for first-time buyers. Yard hours, walk the rows, pick your own units. Grading is honest but it's still a judgement — seeing the stock settles every question at once.
+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.
+Can I bury a tote?
No. The bottle is not rated for external soil pressure and the cage will not hold the shape. Berm above ground or buy a purpose-built cistern.

Before you call a dumpster.

Send a photo and a count. Most loads people assume are worthless still contain cages we can rebottle — which turns a disposal cost into a payment.

Get a quoteCheck the buy-back first