Navigate the yard
Cleveland, Ohio · since 2009Every tote
Every tote
deserves a
second life.
We buy, wash, rebottle, recertify, haul and reclaim intermediate bulk containers. A 275-gallon IBC is 155 pounds of engineered plastic and galvanised steel — far too good a thing to bury after one fill. So we don't.
1.2M+
Totes kept in service
Since we opened the Cleveland yard
94%
Inbound diverted from landfill
Reused, rebottled or reclaimed
48 hr
Typical pickup window
Within our six-state truck radius
0
Totes buried whole
If we take it, it gets taken apart
Form 01 · Spec request
One form. Buy, sell, wash, haul or recycle.
Tell us what you have or what you need and a yard specialist comes back with pricing, grade options and freight — usually inside one business day.
UN 31HA1/Y recertification in houseFood-grade stock segregated & documentedCaustic wash line + steam finishWe buy empties nationwide40–80 totes per trailerDiversion statements for ESG reportingCage & pallet repair shop on siteUN 31HA1/Y recertification in houseFood-grade stock segregated & documentedCaustic wash line + steam finishWe buy empties nationwide40–80 totes per trailerDiversion statements for ESG reportingCage & pallet repair shop on site
The loop
A tote should come back four times before it becomes material again.
Most containers in North America still make one trip. Ours make several. Here is the order of operations we run every inbound load through — and the reason a used tote is the greenest container you can buy.
- 01
Reuse
Sound bottle, sound cage, documented prior contents. Wash it, test it, sell it. This is the cheapest and by far the lowest-carbon outcome, so we try it first, always.
0 lb new plastic - 02
Rebottle
Bottle failed, cage fine. A new inner bottle drops into the reclaimed frame and pallet. You get near-new performance while 88 pounds of galvanised steel stays out of the furnace.
88 lb steel saved - 03
Repair
Cage bowed, bar cracked, pallet split, valve weeping. Our cage shop straightens, welds, re-decks and re-valves. A $12 part routinely rescues a $200 container.
Parts, not landfill - 04
Reclaim
Genuinely finished. The bottle is ground to HDPE flake, the steel is baled, the pallet deck is separated by material. You receive a diversion statement for your reporting.
94% material recovery
Impact Lab
Open the full labPut a number on it before you buy.
Pick a route, set a quantity, and the Reclaim Receipt totals the virgin plastic, steel, carbon, water and landfill airspace your order keeps out of the system. Take it to your sustainability lead — they will ask.
Step 01 — pick a route
Step 02 — how many totes
totes
Carbon avoided4,488 lb CO2e
Process water avoided2,208 gal
Landfill airspace kept empty46 cu yd
Reclaim receipt
RCL-Xundefined-53877
- Totes in this batch
- 24 units
- Virgin HDPE not made
- 1,008 lb
- Steel kept in service
- 2,112 lb
- CO2e avoided
- 4,488 lb
- Process water avoided
- 2,208 gal
- Landfill diverted
- 45.6 cu yd
Which is roughly
- 5,043 miles not driven
- 94 mature trees working for a year
- 130 household showers of water
Planning estimates for a 275-gallon composite IBC. Ask us for the component-level worksheet if you need figures for an ESG or Scope 3 filing.
Products
Eight ways to put a container back to work.
Everything below started life somewhere else — except the new stock, which we keep because sometimes a spec genuinely demands it. We will tell you honestly which one your job needs.
- 01
Rebottled totes
New inner bottle, reclaimed cage and pallet. Near-new performance, a fraction of the embodied carbon.
View → - 02
Reconditioned totes
Washed, pressure tested, resealed. The workhorse of every chemical blender we supply.
View → - 03
Used as-is totes
Rinsed, sold honestly by grade. Perfect for water, dust control and non-critical duty.
View → - 04
Food grade totes
Single-trip edible cargo only, with prior-contents documentation in the box.
View → - 05
New totes
When a spec, an auditor or a first fill genuinely requires virgin material.
View → - 06
Stainless steel IBCs
304 and 316L vessels for solvents, aromatics and high-temperature service.
View → - 07
Accessories & parts
Valves, camlocks, adapters, gaskets, lids, cage bars, pallets — sold individually.
View → - 08
Upcycled builds
Rain harvesting, aquaponics, wash bays, dust suppression — totes with a third career.
View →
Know your container
Six parts. Five of them are worth saving.
Click any number on the diagram. Understanding what a tote is made of is the fastest way to understand why throwing one away is such an expensive mistake.
Blow-moulded high-density polyethylene, 42 lb
HDPE inner bottle
The bottle is one seamless blow-moulding — no glued seams to fail. Natural (translucent) HDPE lets you see the fill line; black bottles are UV-stabilised for outdoor or light-sensitive cargo.
What we do with it
Rinsed and pressure-tested it goes straight back into service. Cracked or stained past recovery, it is ground to flake and sold as recycled resin.
Services
We handle the container so you can handle the cargo.
Buying and selling is only half of it. The other half is the unglamorous work — washing, welding, testing, hauling, documenting — that decides whether a tote gets another decade or a one-way trip.
We buy your empties
Cash or credit for empty totes, cages and pallets. Any condition, any quantity above a pallet.
Details →IBC recycling
Certified end-of-life reclaim with a diversion statement for your sustainability report.
Details →Reconditioning & washing
Triple rinse through caustic wash, steam and dry, with a wash certificate per unit.
Details →Transportation
Van, flatbed and LTL. We load 40-80 totes a trailer so freight never eats the savings.
Details →UN recertification
Leakproofness testing and re-marking so a used tote can legally carry regulated cargo.
Details →Container management
Closed-loop fleets: we track, retrieve, wash and return your totes on a schedule.
Details →
Size & specs
275, 330 or 550 — the seven inches that ruin a delivery.
A 330 shares the 275's footprint but stands seven inches taller. That is the difference between clearing a dock door and not. Toggle the sizes and see for yourself.
Compare
275gal / 1000 L
- L × W × H
- 48" × 40" × 46"
- Tare
- 145 lb
- Gross max
- 2,500 lb
The default. Fits 20 to a 53-ft van, two-high stacked.
330gal / 1250 L
- L × W × H
- 48" × 40" × 53"
- Tare
- 165 lb
- Gross max
- 3,000 lb
Same footprint, seven inches taller. Watch your dock door.
550gal / 2100 L
- L × W × H
- 48" × 46" × 65"
- Tare
- 285 lb
- Gross max
- 5,100 lb
Oversize. Usually steel-caged and shipped flatbed.
The environmental case
The greenest container is the one that already exists.
North America puts millions of intermediate bulk containers into service every year. A large share are used once, stored in a corner of the yard, then paid to be hauled away — which is remarkable, because a composite IBC is one of the most reusable objects industry has ever mass-produced. It is designed to be stacked, drained, washed and refilled dozens of times.
Every tote we route back into service displaces a new one. That is 42 pounds of virgin HDPE that never gets polymerised, 88 pounds of steel that never gets smelted, and roughly 1.9 cubic yards of landfill airspace that stays empty. Multiply by a fleet and it stops being a rounding error.
We are not a recycler that happens to sell containers. We are a reuse operation that recycles only when reuse has genuinely run out — and we will tell you, in writing, which of the two happened to your totes.
42lb
Virgin HDPE avoided
Per tote reused instead of replaced
88lb
Steel kept in service
Cage, rails and pallet frame
187lb CO2e
Carbon avoided
Full reuse versus new manufacture
1.9cu yd
Landfill airspace saved
Uncrushed volume of one 275
92gal
Process water avoided
Resin production, per container
4×
Typical reuse cycles
Before a bottle needs replacing
Industries
Who we load out on a normal Tuesday.
Different industries need different things from the same container — a grower cares about UV stability, a chemical blender cares about the UN plate, a bottler cares about the pallet material.
Chemical manufacturing
UN-rated stock, current leakproof tests, compatible gaskets by chemistry.
Read more →Agriculture & growers
Nutrient batching, irrigation storage, UV-stable black bottles for field use.
Read more →Food & beverage
Single-trip food-grade only, plastic or steel pallets, prior contents on paper.
Read more →Construction & municipal
Water totes, dust suppression, brine and de-icer, jobsite-tough steel cages.
Read more →From the Learning Center
- What is an IBC tote?The 8-minute primer everything else builds on.Open →
- Rebottled vs reconditionedTwo words buyers mix up, and the money it costs them.Open →
- UN markings explainedDecode 31HA1/Y/0326/USA/M1234 character by character.Open →
- How to clean an IBC toteTriple rinse, caustic, steam — and when to stop trying.Open →
- Food grade buyer's guideHow to not poison anyone with a bargain container.Open →
- Rainwater harvesting buildManifolds, first-flush, algae, freeze protection.Open →
Questions
The six we answer most days.
01Do you buy used IBC totes, or only sell them?
Both, every day. We buy empty totes in any condition — clean, stained, cracked bottles, bent cages, even cages with no bottle at all. Send us your count, prior contents and ZIP code and we will quote a purchase price plus pickup.
02What is the difference between a rebottled and a reconditioned tote?
A reconditioned tote keeps its original bottle, which has been washed, pressure tested and fitted with fresh gaskets. A rebottled tote gets a brand-new inner bottle dropped into a reclaimed cage and pallet. Rebottled is the closest thing to new without manufacturing a new cage.
03Are used IBC totes safe for drinking water or food?
Only if they were single-trip food-grade containers with documented prior contents, a food-safe bottle and a plastic or steel pallet. We segregate that stock and supply the prior-contents paperwork with it. Never assume a general-industrial tote is food safe.
04How far will you travel for a pickup?
Our own trucks run Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia. Beyond that we arrange contract freight nationwide — usually 40 to 80 totes per van load, which is where the economics work best.
05How much does an IBC tote cost?
Price tracks condition, grade and volume. A rinsed used tote is the cheapest option, reconditioned sits in the middle, rebottled and food-grade cost more, and new costs the most. Because we buy and process our own stock, we can quote by the pallet or by the truckload.
06Do you recycle totes that are past saving?
Yes — that is the last stop in the loop. The bottle is ground into HDPE flake, the cage and rails are baled as scrap steel, and the pallet deck is separated by material. Nothing usable goes to landfill.
Another 40-odd answers live in the full FAQ.
Reference
The numbers people come to this site for.
Everything below is a planning figure. Individual containers vary, and on a rated unit the plate is the only number that governs.
| Format | Litres | L × W × H | Tare | Gross rating | Cube | Per 53-ft van |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 275 gal composite | 1000 L | 48" × 40" × 46" | 145 lb | 2,500 lb | 51 cu ft | 45–52 floor / 80 stacked |
| 330 gal composite | 1250 L | 48" × 40" × 53" | 165 lb | 3,000 lb | 59 cu ft | 45–52 floor / 72 stacked |
| 550 gal oversize | 2100 L | 48" × 46" × 65" | 285 lb | 5,100 lb | 83 cu ft | 38–44 floor |
| 265 gal stainless | 1000 L | 46" × 46" × 51" | 330 lb | 3,300 lb | 63 cu ft | 40–46 floor |
| Cage and pallet only | — | 48" × 40" × 46" | 88 lb | — | 51 cu ft | 80+ stacked |
| Grade | What it is | Right for | Never for | Relative price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Used, grade C | Rinsed, heavy staining, sound | Dust suppression, ballast, builds | Food, potable, regulated | Lowest |
| Used, grade B | Rinsed, visible staining | Water, brine, nutrients, rain capture | Food, potable, regulated | Low |
| Used, grade A | Rinsed, cosmetically clean | Customer-facing storage, resale | Food, potable, regulated | Low-mid |
| Reconditioned | Washed, pressure tested, resealed | General industrial refills | Food, potable | Middle |
| Rebottled | New bottle, reclaimed cage | First fills, near-new performance | — | Mid-high |
| Food grade | Documented single-trip edible history | Edible and potable cargo | — | High |
| New | Virgin bottle, new cage | Validated first fills, audited specs | — | Highest |
| Stainless | 304 or 316L vessel | Solvents, aromatics, hot fills, CIP | — | Highest |
| Fluid | lb per gallon | Max gallons | % of nominal | Gasket |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Water | 8.34 | 275 | 100% | EPDM |
| Diesel fuel | 7.1 | 275 | 100% | Viton |
| Motor oil | 7.4 | 275 | 100% | Viton |
| Liquid detergent | 8.8 | 267 | 97% | EPDM |
| Brine, 23% NaCl | 9.9 | 238 | 87% | EPDM |
| 28% UAN fertiliser | 10.7 | 220 | 80% | EPDM |
| Corn syrup | 11.7 | 201 | 73% | Silicone |
| Sulfuric acid, 93% | 15.3 | 154 | 56% | PTFE-lined |
How the yard runs
What happens to a container between your dock and ours.
Nine wash stations, a cage shop, a rebottling bench and a certification bench. Every one of them exists to move the cut-off line further down the reuse ladder.
| # | Station | Medium | Temperature | Dwell | Rejection trigger |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Intake and identification | — | — | — | Unknown prior contents |
| 02 | Residue evacuation | — | Ambient | — | Undeclared regulated residue |
| 03 | Triple rinse | Fresh water | Ambient–warm | Fill, agitate, drain ×3 | Persistent solids |
| 04 | Caustic wash | Alkaline solution | 60–70 °C | 10–20 min | Incompatible residue |
| 05 | Steam finish | Live steam | 100 °C | 3–6 min | Odour after two cycles |
| 06 | Dry and inspect | Forced air | Ambient | 20–40 min | Crazing, stress whitening |
| 07 | Pressure test | Air | Ambient | Sealed 3 psi, held | Any decay |
| 08 | Cage and base repair | — | — | Varies | Structural failure beyond repair |
| 09 | Refit and record | — | — | ~5 min | — |
| Outcome | Share | Meaning | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reused after washing | 61% | Bottle, cage and pallet all back in service | Rising |
| Rebottled | 12% | New bottle into a reclaimed cage | Stable |
| Repaired and returned | 6% | Cage, base or valve work; unit stayed whole | Rising |
| Reclaimed to material | 15% | HDPE to flake, steel baled, deck separated | Falling |
| Unrecoverable | 6% | Residue, contamination, bonded fractions | Down 1.5 pts in 3 years |
Before you order
Five details that turn a range into a price.
Send these and most enquiries come back quoted the same day. Leave them out and we write back with questions instead.
What to send
- The fluid. Prior contents if you are selling, next contents if you are buying. It decides grade, wash cycle, gasket and plate requirement in one answer.
- A rough count. Exact is not needed — we reconcile on collection or delivery and price against the real number.
- Postal code. Freight is the largest variable on small orders and nearly irrelevant on large ones.
- Your lowest vertical clearance. Door, rack beam, mezzanine. One line prevents the most common rejected delivery in this trade.
- How firm your dates are. Flexibility is what lets an order ride a scheduled truck instead of booking one.
What ships with the containers
- A valve, an outlet cap and a fill lid on every unit unless you say otherwise.
- New gaskets on anything reconditioned or rebottled, matched to the fluid you named.
- A wash certificate per unit: prior contents, cycle, date, operator.
- A pressure test result — sealed 3 psi with a hold.
- A leakproofness record and re-marking where the unit returns to regulated service.
- A prior-contents record on all food-grade stock.
- A bill of lading with counts split by grade.
- A diversion statement on request, for sustainability reporting.
| Order size | Typical arrangement | Freight per unit | Best move |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–4 | LTL, 1–2 pallet positions | Very high | Collect from the yard |
| 5–19 | LTL, several positions | High | Ride a scheduled lane |
| 20–39 | Partial load or existing lane | Moderate | Usually fine as is |
| 40–52 | Full floor load, 53-ft van | Low | The sweet spot |
| 53–80 | Double-stacked empties | Lowest | Best value per unit |
Extended FAQ · 8 questions
More questions, answered
01Do you sell to individuals or only to businesses?
Both. A large share of our grade B and C stock goes to people building rain systems, wash bays and garden projects. There is no trade-only rule and no minimum account size — the practical minimum is one pallet position for collection at the yard.
02How quickly can I get containers?
Within our six-state own-truck radius, typically 48 hours to a week depending on the lane. Nationwide by contract freight is usually one to three weeks. Collection from the Cleveland yard can often be the same week if the grade you want is in stock.
03Why is there no phone number anywhere on this site?
Because every job depends on a count, a prior-contents description, a postal code and often a photograph. Spoken over a phone those become an approximation somebody has to correct later; in writing they become a quote you can hold us to. Everything runs through email and the forms on this site.
04What is the difference between the grades you sell?
Used as-is is rinsed and honestly graded A, B or C. Reconditioned adds a full wash cycle, a pressure test and new closures. Rebottled puts a brand-new bottle into a reclaimed cage. Food grade is documented single-trip stock with edible prior contents. New is virgin everything. Stainless is a different material class entirely.
05Can you take containers away as well as supply them?
Yes, and it is roughly half of what we do. We buy empties in any condition, collect from your site, and issue a purchase record with counts and grades. Loads with resale value usually net you a payment after collection costs.
06Do you deliver outside Ohio?
Regularly. Our own trucks cover Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia. Everything beyond that goes on contract freight, quoted delivered so you see one number rather than a product price plus a freight surprise.
07What documentation comes with an order?
A bill of lading with counts by grade on every load. Wash certificates and pressure test results on reconditioned units. Leakproofness records on recertified containers. Prior-contents records on food-grade stock. Diversion statements on request for sustainability reporting.
08How do I know which container I actually need?
Start from the fluid rather than the price. Tell us what is going in, at what density and at what temperature, and we will name the grade, the gasket material and the fill level. That conversation takes one email and prevents most of the failures we investigate.
Next step
Have totes to move? So do we.
Send one form and a yard specialist prices the whole job — purchase, pickup, wash, recert or haul.