This is the rule the company is built on. Everything below is how we live it — five charters we will not compromise on, even when it costs us a sale.
Every IBC tote that enters our yard is graded for reuse before any other option is considered. We do not crush, granulate, or scrap a tote that has serviceable life left in it — even if the immediate margin would be higher. Reuse keeps the embodied carbon and the embodied capital in service.
When a tote cannot be saved, the HDPE shell is sent to a regional plastics processor for granulation, and the steel cage goes to a scrap recycler. We do not commingle these streams. Every load gets a chain-of-custody record.
We pay for pickup starting at twelve totes because that is the threshold where the freight math works. We will not pretend we can pick up two for free, and we will not let twelve sit in a dumpster because the volume is "awkward." If your numbers are between, talk to us — we route loads together.
We will not sell a tote as food-grade unless we have washed it ourselves with a traceable batch record, or have a wash certificate from a vetted source. The phrase "I think it was just syrup" is not a wash record.
Any tote that previously held an acutely hazardous substance — solvents above regulated thresholds, certain pesticides, fuels — is routed to end-of-life recycling under our handling protocol. We do not resell those units, period.
If we are unsure of a tote's history, we say so on the quote. We grade accordingly. We do not market unknowns as knowns. This is the boring rule that makes the others possible.
Sustainability claims should be auditable. Below is the methodology behind every number you see on this site, including the live counters on the homepage.
A standard 330-gallon composite IBC ships at roughly 145 lb empty: ~120 lb HDPE shell, ~25 lb steel cage, plus pallet and fittings. Industry-average embodied carbon for virgin HDPE is 1.8 kg CO₂e per kg.
Result: ~720 lb CO₂e avoided per tote reused instead of replaced. That is the dominant lifecycle benefit.
Producing virgin HDPE consumes ~4.5 gallons of process water per pound. A reconditioning wash cycle uses ~10 gallons total per tote.
Result: ~530 gallons of net water saved per reused tote, after accounting for our wash bay.
Every reused tote diverts 145 lb of mass from landfill or incineration. Even at end-of-life, our recycling stream diverts 120 lb of HDPE plus 25 lb of steel into material recovery.
Result: zero of our totes have gone to landfill since 2019.
These numbers are conservative. We do not count freight emissions saved by a customer using a local reused tote instead of waiting for a national dealer to ship a new one. We could — but we'd rather under-claim.
Unless you have a regulatory reason to specify new, ask for reconditioned. Same performance, ~60% of the carbon, half the price.
Even ten totes in your yard is a future-pickup waiting to happen. Stage them clean and we'll route them on our next nearby load.
If you know what was in the tote, telling us means the tote can be reused instead of recycled. Information is itself a recyclable.
Every CO₂e number we publish is reconstructible from the assumptions below. If you want to dispute a number, we'd rather you dispute the assumption than dispute the result. Here is the per-tote lifecycle calculation we use for a standard 330-gallon composite IBC.
Yes — this is sensitive to assumptions. If we used recycled-content steel and the low end of HDPE embodied carbon, the number would drop by ~25%. If we counted freight emissions saved against a national dealer's long-haul shipment, it would rise by ~15%. We've chosen the middle and stayed there.
The water savings number is the one customers ask about most. Here is the line-item version.
We do not claim a savings on the water that originally filled the customer's tote, because that water is going somewhere anyway. The savings here is strictly the avoided manufacture of a new shell.
A reuse company that does not measure its own emissions is just hoping. Here is what we know about ours. The numbers are imperfect; we will update them as we learn more.
Two propane forklifts, one diesel flatbed (when we own-haul), the hot-water boiler. Estimated ~14 metric tons CO₂e per year. Tracked from receipts.
~38,000 kWh per year from the local co-op. Roughly 15 metric tons CO₂e at current grid mix. We've looked at solar on the wash-bay roof; the payback math is close to favorable.
The dominant share — somewhere between 180 and 240 metric tons CO₂e per year, depending on route mix. We're working with our owner-operators on idle reduction and back-haul utilization.
Total estimated annual footprint: ~230–270 metric tons CO₂e. Total estimated annual avoided emissions from reused totes: ~3,400 metric tons CO₂e. We are net-negative by an order of magnitude, but we want to keep cutting the numerator.
There is a well-known phenomenon in sustainability circles called the rebound effect: when a thing becomes cheaper or more environmentally palatable, people use more of it, and some share of the savings is eaten up. We are not immune.
A reconditioned 275-gallon tote is roughly half the price of a new one. That price point unlocks use cases that would not otherwise happen — backyard rainwater systems, hobby aquaponics, small-batch sanitizer. Some of those displaced something worse (a virgin plastic barrel, an aluminum tank, nothing at all and a continued reliance on bottled water). Some of them are net new consumption.
We do not try to model this precisely. We mention it because being honest about the limits of the math is the only way the math is worth anything. Reuse is the right answer. It is not a perfect answer.
Pounds HDPE diverted, pounds CO₂e avoided, gallons water saved. Calculated from the methodology above. Drop it directly into your scope-3 reduction reporting.
If we're picking up totes that will not be reused, you get a recycling weight ticket with the destination facility, gross/tare/net weights, and the date the load was processed.
Date, batch ID, water temperature, detergent concentration, sanitizer concentration, dwell time, post-rinse verification. Stored for seven years; available on email request.
If your team needs a year-end summary for ESG reporting, email us and we'll generate a customer-specific one. No charge.
If you bought 100 reconditioned 330-gallon totes from us in a given year, your share of the avoided impact is approximately:
These numbers are eligible to be reported in your scope-3 category 1 (purchased goods and services) reductions, with the methodology cited above. We will write the citation language for you if your reporting team needs it.
What it actually feels like to buy or sell totes through us — quote turnaround, freight transparency, return policy, the whole thing.