Navigate the yard
Guide · Sustainability
What actually happens when a tote is recycled.
Recycling is the least interesting thing we do with a container and the one people ask about most. It is also where a lot of vagueness lives in this industry — 'responsibly recycled' covers everything from careful material separation to crushing a container whole and calling the landfill a recycling facility. So here is the process, station by station, with the outputs and where each one goes.
Short answer
Dismantle, separate, then: bottle → size reduce → granulate → wash → dry → flake; steel → cut → bale; deck → separated by material. About 38 lb of usable HDPE flake and 88 lb of steel per container.
- HDPE recovered
- 38 lb
- Steel recovered
- 88 lb
- CO2e avoided
- 148 lb
- Buried whole
- 0
Form 01 · Spec request
Have containers at end of life?
Send the count and prior contents. We check reuse potential first — if any of the load can be saved we will tell you, and pay you more for those units.
Before the line
Three checks that stop a container from being recycled.
Reclaim is the last resort, so the first thing the reclaim area does is try to avoid using itself.
- 01
Refill check
Sound bottle, documented prior contents, repairable cage. If it passes, it goes to the wash line instead and comes out as a working container.
Diverted to reuse - 02
Rebottle check
Bottle finished, cage sound. The frame goes to rebottling and only the bottle enters reclaim — 88 pounds of steel stays in service.
Diverted to rebottling - 03
Repair check
Bent bars, cracked welds, split decks and dead valves are all fixable. The cage shop takes anything it can save.
Diverted to repair - 04
Reclaim
Only what fails all three is dismantled to material, weighed by stream and sent onward as flake, bale or separated deck material.
Last resort
The line
Eight stations from container to commodity.
| # | Station | What happens | Output |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Residue evacuation | Heels drained under containment and routed to licensed treatment. | Residue to treatment |
| 02 | Dismantle | Bottle separated from cage; deck, fittings and hardware removed and sorted. | Component streams |
| 03 | Size reduction | Bottle cut down to a manageable feed size for the granulator. | Bottle sections |
| 04 | Granulation | Sections ground into flake of a controlled particle size. | Raw HDPE flake |
| 05 | Wash | Flake washed to remove residual product, label adhesive and dirt. | Washed flake |
| 06 | Dry & sort | Forced-air drying and separation of contaminants and off-colour material. | Saleable HDPE flake |
| 07 | Steel cut & bale | Cage, rails and pallet frame cut and baled to mill-feed specification. | Ferrous bale |
| 08 | Deck separation | Composite decking split by material; wood to biomass, plastic to reclaim. | Sorted deck material |
Outputs
What one container yields.
38lb
HDPE flake
From a 42 lb bottle after wash losses
88lb
Ferrous bale
Cage, rails and pallet frame
12–20lb
Deck material
Separated by type
148lb CO2e
Avoided
Against virgin material production
Where the material goes
Reclaimed HDPE flake from IBC bottles is a good, well-characterised feedstock. It is a single polymer, it comes in large clean pieces, and its prior contents are usually known — all of which makes it far more valuable than mixed post-consumer plastic. It typically ends up in pipe and conduit, agricultural drainage, industrial sheet, pallets and crates, and non-food packaging.
What it does not become, in almost all cases, is a new IBC bottle. Blow-moulding a container to a UN design type requires specific virgin resin grades with known and consistent properties, and regulated packaging adds a further layer of requirement. This is a limitation of the application, not of the material quality.
Steel is simpler: baled ferrous scrap goes to mill feed and is genuinely closed-loop, since new steel routinely contains high recycled content. The steel from your cages will be steel again.
Why this matters for how you buy
Because recycled tote plastic cannot become new tote plastic, the only way to reduce the demand for virgin resin in this product category is to keep containers in service longer. Recycling handles the material at the end; it does not close the loop on the product.
That is the entire argument for buying reconditioned and rebottled containers, and for running a closed-loop programme if your volumes support one. Recycling is what we do when those options are exhausted — not instead of them.
Questions
Recycling, answered.
01Why is recycling ranked last?
Because it spends energy to recover material that a wash cycle would have kept in a finished, higher-value form. Reuse avoids 187 pounds of CO2e per container; reclaim avoids 148, and the reclaimed material becomes pipe rather than another container. Count the replacement container that still has to be made and the gap widens sharply.
02Can recycled HDPE become a new IBC bottle?
Generally not. Blow-moulded IBC bottles are made from specific virgin resin grades, and regulated containers add design-type requirements on top. Reclaimed flake from totes goes into pipe, drainage, industrial sheet and non-food packaging instead.
03What percentage is actually recovered?
Around 94% of inbound mass across our whole intake, counting reuse, rebottling, repair and material reclaim together. Within the reclaim stream specifically, the bottle yields about 38 pounds of usable flake from a 42-pound bottle after wash losses.
04What happens to the residue?
Heels are evacuated and captured under containment at intake and routed to licensed treatment. It never enters the material streams and it never reaches a yard drain.
05Do I get documentation?
Yes — a diversion statement showing unit counts and tonnage split by reuse, rebottling, repair and material reclaim for the period or the load.
Material markets
Where each recovered stream actually goes.
Reclaim is only meaningful if the material has a buyer. These are the destinations and roughly what governs them.
| Stream | Form | Yield per container | Typical market | What governs value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HDPE flake, natural | Washed granulate | ~38 lb | Pipe, drainage, industrial sheet | Colour consistency, contamination |
| HDPE flake, mixed colour | Washed granulate | Variable | Non-food packaging, pallets | Colour mix |
| Ferrous bale | Compressed steel | ~88 lb | Mill feed | Cleanliness, alloy consistency |
| Composite deck, plastic | Separated | 8–16 lb | Plastic reclaim | Separation quality |
| Wood deck | Separated | 15–25 lb | Biomass or mulch | Contamination |
| Serviceable fittings | Sorted parts | 1–3 lb | Reuse in reconditioning | Condition |
| Residue | Liquid | Variable | Licensed treatment | Regulated status |
| Requirement for a new bottle | Virgin resin | Reclaimed flake |
|---|---|---|
| Documented, consistent melt flow index | Yes | Variable batch to batch |
| Known additive package | Yes | Unknown, inherited |
| Design-type approval traceability | Yes | Not available |
| Colour consistency for wall inspection | Yes | Rarely |
| No absorbed prior chemistry | Yes | Cannot be guaranteed |
| Regulatory acceptance for regulated cargo | Yes | No |
Next step
Let us look before you scrap.
A container you have written off is often a rebottling cage and a cheque. Send a count and a description first.