Scrap &
recycling.
If you think you have scrap, send photographs anyway. About one in nine units people send us as dead turns out not to be.
Scrap is the terminal grade and the smallest one: about 7% of what we take in. A unit only qualifies after a second grader confirms it cannot be washed, rebottled, sold as cage-only or fabricated into something — and roughly one in nine gets pulled back out at that step. Genuinely dead units yield about 118 lb of recovered material and nothing for the landfill.
Scrap is a decision, not a condition
Most reclaim operations treat scrap as the default destination for anything that fails a test. We treat it as a judgement that has to be defended, because the difference between “this cannot be a container” and “this cannot be anything” is where almost all of our reuse rate lives.
A bottle with crazing at the lower corners will not hold 2,400 lb of water. It will hold sixty cubic feet of compost for a decade, or three hundred gallons of standing water in an unpressurised planter, or serve as a mushroom fruiting chamber. None of those uses care about the hoop stress that killed it as a tank.
What genuinely disqualifies a unit
| Finding | Route |
|---|---|
| Through-wall cracking past the shoulder | Bottle → regrind; cage → cage-only |
| Destroyed discharge boss | Bottle → regrind; cage → cage-only |
| Cured resin or polyurethane contamination | Bottle → regrind (cannot be cleaned) |
| Prohibited prior content | Returned to seller or permitted facility |
| Cage corroded through the tube wall | Cage → steel scrap |
| Frame out of square beyond jig recovery | Cage → steel scrap; may still be a planter frame |
| Pallet base destroyed | Base swap — not a scrap reason on its own |
The second look, formally
Every unit routed to scrap is reviewed by a second grader against four questions, in order:
- Can the bottle hold liquid at atmospheric pressure, even if not under load?
- Can the cage be sold as cage-only, or cut down into a frame?
- Can the pallet base be recovered for a swap on another unit?
- Is there a fabrication build in the catalogue this suits?
Only a “no” to all four sends a unit to the bunker. In 2025 that review diverted roughly 11% of the scrap-routed stream back into upcycled builds and cage-only sales.
Material recovery from a unit that truly is dead
About 38 lb of HDPE from the bottle, 48 lb of galvanised steel from the cage, and either 32 lb of steel or 24 lb of timber from the pallet — roughly 118 lb recovered, with only the valve and gasket, under half a pound, left unplaced. The full process is on the recycling and reprocessing page.
Why this beats a disposal hauler
A disposal hauler charges you $18 to $40 a unit and gives you a weight ticket that says nothing about where the material went. We pay you $6 to $12 a unit and give you a diversion record you can quote in a sustainability report. The swing is $24 to $52 a container, plus a document.
Scrap grade terms
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| We pay, per unit | $6 – $12 |
| Disposal hauler, per unit | $18 – $40 charged to you |
| Net swing | $24 – $52 |
| Cage-only resale | $35 – $60 |
| Minimum for paid pickup | ≈30 units |
| Share of our intake | ≈7% |
| Pulled back by second look | ≈11% of that |
| Landfilled | 0%, since 2014 |
We cannot take
- Listed hazardous waste
- Unrinsed pesticide or herbicide containers
- Radioactive, infectious or explosive residues
- Units with more than a trace heel of product
- Unidentifiable prior contents in bulk quantity
If your material needs a licensed TSDF we will say so and point you to one rather than quietly accepting it.
Scrap questions
What actually makes a tote scrap?
A failure that cannot be repaired and cannot be worked around. In practice: a bottle with through-wall cracking or stress crazing that has propagated past the shoulder; a destroyed discharge boss; contamination with a cured resin or polyurethane; or a prior content we are not permitted to handle. A bent cage is not scrap — it is a rebottling candidate or steel. A stained bottle is not scrap — it is technical grade.
What is the second look?
Before anything enters the regrind bunker, a second grader asks one question: can this be a product rather than a material? A bottle that will not hold 2,400 lb of water will hold sixty cubic feet of compost indefinitely. A cage that is out of square for rebottling is still good tube for a stand. Roughly one in nine units gets pulled back out at this step and routed to fabrication.
Do you pay for scrap-grade totes?
Yes — $6 to $12 per unit, which is the steel and the regrind value less handling. It is not much, but it is considerably better than paying a disposal hauler $18 to $40 to take the same thing away. Above about thirty units it starts to be real money.
Is cage-only the same as scrap?
No. Cage-only is a product: a sellable galvanised frame from a unit whose bottle failed, priced at $35 to $60. Scrap is material: baled steel and HDPE flake. We would much rather sell you a cage than bale it, which is why cage-only is a published line in our inventory.
What genuinely ends a container
| Finding | Bottle route | Cage route | Could it still be something? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Through-wall cracking past the shoulder | Regrind | Cage-only sale | Yes — planter, crib, trellis |
| Destroyed or split discharge boss | Regrind | Cage-only sale | Yes — top-cut brewer if the wall is sound |
| Cured resin or polyurethane contamination | Regrind | Cage-only sale | Rarely — the residue is bonded to the wall |
| Severe crazing, all four corners, propagating | Fabrication or regrind | Cage-only or rebottle | Yes — atmospheric vessels, compost, planters |
| Permanent freeze deformation, bottle only | Rebottle candidate | Retained | Yes — rebottled unit |
| Permanent freeze deformation, cage sprung too | Regrind | Steel scrap | Planter frame if roughly square |
| Cage corroded through the tube wall | Depends on bottle | Steel scrap | No for the cage |
| Frame racked beyond jig recovery | Depends on bottle | Steel scrap | Planter frame, geometry permitting |
| Pallet base destroyed | — | — | Not a scrap reason — base swap, $28 |
| Prohibited prior content | Returned to seller or permitted facility | Same | No |
A bent cage is not scrap — it is a rebottling candidate or steel. A stained bottle is not scrap — it is technical grade. A destroyed pallet base is not scrap at all; it is a twenty-minute swap. Scrap is a narrower category than most people assume.
The formal rule, and what it recovers
Every unit routed to scrap is reviewed by a second grader who did not make the first call, against four questions in descending order of how much embodied work the answer preserves:
- Can the bottle hold liquid at atmospheric pressure, even if it would not hold it under load?
- Can the cage be sold as cage-only, or cut down into a frame?
- Can the pallet base be recovered for a swap onto another unit?
- Is there a build in the fabrication catalogue this unit suits?
A yes to any one and the unit comes back out. All four have to be no.
Why a second person
Because scrap is one mark on a tag and fabrication is a conversation. At four o'clock on a Friday with eleven units left on the pad, those are not equivalent options, and no amount of caring about the environment makes them equivalent. The second grader has no sunk time in the unit and no desire for it to be over.
| Destination | Share of recoveries | Typical unit |
|---|---|---|
| Fabrication build | ≈49% | Crazed bottle, sound cage |
| Cage-only sale | ≈32% | Dead bottle, square cage |
| Pallet base recovery | ≈11% | Dead bottle, racked cage, good base |
| Second wash attempt | ≈8% | Residue the first cycle did not clear |
The rule recovers about 11% of the scrap-routed stream, which is roughly two percentage points of total intake. It cost us one line on a form, after $340,000 of capital over five years had failed to move the number past 88%.
Crazing is a stress failure, and most second lives have no stress
This is the single fact the whole fabrication shop runs on.
A bottle that will not hold 2,400 lb of water under a 40-inch hydrostatic head will quite happily hold sixty cubic feet of compost for a decade, or three hundred gallons of standing water in an unpressurised open-top vessel. Environmental stress cracking propagates under hoop stress, and there is no hoop stress at zero head.
| Build | Bottle requirement | Cage requirement |
|---|---|---|
| Cage planter, raised bed | None at all | Roughly square, sound base |
| Firewood crib, trellis frame | None | Geometry can be poor |
| Compost tea brewer | Holds at atmospheric pressure; crazing fine | Intact for forklift handling |
| Wash station | Holds a low head; light crazing only | Square |
| Rain catchment bank | Sound at a 40 in head; crazing excluded | Square |
| Aquaponics stack | Documented food grade — never a recovered unit | Square |
What scrap grade is worth, and against what
| Item | Figure |
|---|---|
| We pay, per unit | $6 – $12 |
| Disposal hauler charges you, per unit | $18 – $40 |
| Net swing per container | $24 – $52 |
| Cage-only resale value | $35 – $60 |
| Material recovered per unit | ≈118 lb |
| Minimum for a paid pickup | ≈30 units |
| Under 30 units on a corridor | Net-zero collection |
| Share of our intake | ≈7% |
| Pulled back by the second look | ≈11% of that |
| Landfilled | 0%, since 2014 |
What we cannot take
- Listed hazardous waste.
- Unrinsed pesticide or herbicide containers — route these through your state agricultural container programme.
- Radioactive, infectious or explosive residues.
- Units holding more than a trace heel of product.
- Unidentifiable prior contents in bulk quantity.
If your material needs a licensed treatment, storage and disposal facility we will say so and point you at one rather than quietly accepting it. An honestly declared unpleasant chemical is a scrap-grade unit, which we buy every day; a mis-declared one is a load we return at your expense.
Detailed questions
What actually makes a tote scrap?
A failure that cannot be repaired and cannot be worked around: through-wall cracking past the shoulder, a destroyed discharge boss, contamination with a cured resin or polyurethane, corrosion through the cage tube wall, or a prior content we are not permitted to handle. A bent cage is not scrap and a stained bottle is not scrap.
Do you pay for scrap-grade totes?
Yes, $6 to $12 per unit — the steel and the regrind value less handling. It is not much, and it is considerably better than paying a disposal hauler $18 to $40 to take the same thing away. Above about thirty units it starts to be real money.
Is cage-only the same as scrap?
No. Cage-only is a product — a sellable galvanised frame from a unit whose bottle failed, priced at $35 to $60. Scrap is material: baled steel and HDPE flake. We would much rather sell you a cage than bale it, which is why cage-only is a published line in our inventory.
Can you take totes that still have residue?
A trace heel, yes. A measurable volume of product, no — that makes it a waste shipment rather than a container shipment, needing a permitted facility and a manifest we do not hold. Drain them, close the valve, and tell us what was in them.
Do you issue a certificate of destruction?
Yes, on request. It records the serial numbers, the date, the disassembly and the material destinations. This is a routine request from pharmaceutical and consumer-brand customers who need to document that branded or regulated containers were genuinely destroyed rather than resold.
How do I know you are not just landfilling it anyway?
Because landfill costs money and leaves a paper trail. A disposal invoice, a weight ticket, a hauler contract — our accounts payable contain none since 2014. Ask and we will show you the vendor ledger, which is a materially easier thing for an auditor to confirm than any positive claim about where material went.
What is the one material you cannot place?
Valve and gasket assemblies. Under half a pound per unit, mixed polypropylene, EPDM and sometimes a metal insert, uneconomic to separate at our volume and refused by every reprocessor we have approached. We stockpile about four tons rather than bury them. It is the one part of our reporting that is a problem rather than an achievement.
Why is a low recycling rate a good thing?
Because recycling destroys the object's form and keeps only the material. Reconditioning a tote avoids roughly 71 lb of CO₂e against new; shredding and remoulding the same tote avoids about 23 lb. A company recycling 100% of its intake has destroyed everything that passed through it. The number worth managing is the reuse-to-recycle split, not the diversion rate.
Send photographs before you scrap them
One in nine is not actually dead, and finding that out costs you nothing.