Fleet
buyback.
Tell us your monthly volume and how many sites. Programme quotes take two to three business days because we route the collection schedule first.
A standing programme converts an empty-tote disposal cost into a revenue line. Scheduled collections on a count threshold, grade pricing locked for twelve months, one agreement across all your sites, one invoice, and a quarterly diversion statement written for a sustainability disclosure. Typical swing against disposal is $53–$100 per container.
The arithmetic, on one site
A plant that empties forty 275 gallon totes a month currently pays somewhere between $18 and $40 a unit to have them hauled away: call it $1,160 a month at the midpoint. The same forty units, graded honestly, are worth roughly $1,400 a month paid to you if the mix leans Grade A, or around $800 if it leans technical.
Call the swing $2,000 a month and $24,000 a year, on a single site, from a line item that currently reads “waste removal.” Nothing about the operation changes except where the truck goes.
What a programme fixes that one-off sales do not
- The negotiation. You stop pricing a stack of totes four times a year. The grade schedule is agreed once.
- The wall. Collections trigger on a count threshold, so empties never accumulate into a yard problem that needs a management decision.
- The freight. Scheduled collections ride on backhaul, which is why programme freight is close to free where a transactional pickup might not be.
- The reporting. You get an auditable diversion number instead of a hauler's weight ticket that says nothing about where the material went.
- The procurement loop. If you also buy totes, the buyback credit nets against the purchase on the same invoice.
Closed loop: the next step up
Above about a hundred units a month, the better structure is closed loop. We supply reconditioned units, you fill and ship them, we collect the empties at end of fill, wash or rebottle them, and return them to you. You stop buying containers and start paying per turn. Capital cost goes to zero, the diversion rate goes to effectively 100%, and the same cages come back round six or eight times.
Staging instruction for your sites
Simple enough to put on a laminated card by the dock door: drain fully and close the valve; cap the discharge; stack four high with cages interlocked; data plates facing the aisle; keep food-history and chemical-history units in separate stacks. That last one is worth real money to you, because mixed stacks get graded down.
Programme terms
| Term | Detail |
|---|---|
| Minimum volume | ≈20 units / month / site |
| Price lock | 12 months, ±15% index clause |
| Collection trigger | Count threshold or fixed schedule |
| Freight | Covered on backhaul routes |
| Payment | ACH, net 5 from grading |
| Invoicing | Single consolidated invoice |
| Reporting | Quarterly diversion statement |
| Term | 12 months, 60-day exit |
Site staging card
- Drain fully; close and cap the valve
- Stack four high, cages interlocked
- Data plates facing the aisle
- Separate food-history from chemical-history
- Keep stainless and poly apart
- Flag any unit with standing product — do not stack it
Also buying from us?
Buyback credits net against purchases on the same invoice, and the collection rides on the delivery truck. One stop, two transactions.
Leasing and poolingProgramme questions
What size operation does this make sense for?
Roughly twenty units a month or more at a single site, or any multi-site operation where the totes accumulate faster than anyone wants to deal with. Below that a transactional sale is simpler. Above about a hundred a month, a closed-loop programme — where we also supply the reconditioned units you fill — usually beats pure buyback.
Is the price locked, or does it float?
Locked for the programme term, usually twelve months, with a resin and scrap-steel index clause that only moves if the underlying markets move more than 15%. Budget certainty is most of the value of a programme, so we would rather hold the price and take the market risk ourselves within that band.
How is a multi-site programme managed?
One agreement, one invoice, one counterparty, and a collection schedule per site. Each site gets a simple staging instruction — stack four high, cages interlocked, valves capped, data plates facing out — and a count threshold that triggers a pickup. You do not have to call; the schedule and the threshold do the work.
What exactly is in the quarterly diversion statement?
Units received by grade and by month; the split between returned to service, rebottled, fabricated and regrind; pounds of HDPE kept in service; pounds of steel recovered; estimated CO₂e avoided with the calculation method shown; and landfill tonnage, which is zero and auditable. It is written to be quoted directly in a corporate sustainability disclosure.
What a programme is worth, per site
| Units / month | Disposal cost avoided | Buyback revenue | Annual swing |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | $2,160 – $4,800 | $4,200 – $7,200 | $6,360 – $12,000 |
| 20 | $4,320 – $9,600 | $8,400 – $14,400 | $12,720 – $24,000 |
| 40 | $8,640 – $19,200 | $16,800 – $28,800 | $25,440 – $48,000 |
| 75 | $16,200 – $36,000 | $31,500 – $54,000 | $47,700 – $90,000 |
| 150 | $32,400 – $72,000 | $63,000 – $108,000 | $95,400 – $180,000 |
Disposal avoided at $18–$40 per unit; buyback at the Grade A band of $35–$60. A technical-weighted mix is lower and a food-grade-weighted mix is considerably higher. Nothing about the operation changes except where the truck goes and which column the line item sits in.
What a programme fixes that one-off sales do not
The negotiation
You stop pricing a stack of totes four times a year. The grade schedule is agreed once, locked for twelve months with a ±15% resin and scrap-steel index clause that only moves if the underlying markets move more than that.
The wall
Collections trigger on a count threshold, so empties never accumulate into a yard problem that needs a management decision. In our experience this — not the money — is what actually bothers most plants about empties.
The freight
Scheduled collections ride on backhaul, which is why programme freight is reliably free where an ad hoc pickup depends on luck.
The reporting
An auditable diversion number scoped to your own serial numbers, rather than a hauler's weight ticket that says nothing about where the material went.
The procurement loop
If you also buy totes, the buyback credit nets against the purchase on the same invoice. One stop, two transactions.
The staging discipline
A laminated card by the dock door, and a measurable improvement in the grade split within two months because units stop getting mixed.
What the agreement actually says
| Term | Standard | Negotiable? |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum volume | ≈20 units per month per site | Yes, for multi-site |
| Price lock | 12 months | Yes, 6 to 24 |
| Index clause | ±15% on resin and scrap steel | Band is negotiable; existence is not |
| Collection trigger | Count threshold or fixed schedule | Yes |
| Freight | Covered on backhaul corridors at 20+ | Shared beyond 400 miles |
| Payment | ACH, net 5 from grading | Yes |
| Invoicing | Single consolidated invoice across sites | Yes |
| Grade dispute | Photographs and revised split before payment; return at our cost if our error | No — this protects both sides |
| Reporting | Quarterly diversion statement | Monthly available |
| Term | 12 months | Yes |
| Exit | 60 days | Yes |
| Prohibited material | Listed hazardous waste, unrinsed pesticide containers, anything over a trace heel | No |
The staging card
- Drain fully; close and cap the valve. A sloshing heel cannot go on the truck.
- Stack four high, cages interlocked.
- Data plates facing the aisle.
- Separate food-history from chemical-history. This one is worth $20 to $40 a unit to you.
- Keep stainless and poly apart.
- Flag any damaged unit separately rather than hiding it mid-stack.
The step beyond buyback
Above roughly a hundred units a month, the better structure is closed loop: we supply reconditioned units, you fill and ship them, we collect the empties at end of fill, wash or rebottle them, and return them. You stop buying containers and start paying per turn.
| Standing buyback | Closed loop | |
|---|---|---|
| You buy containers | Yes, separately | No |
| Capital cost | Full purchase | None |
| You pay | Nothing — we pay you | Per turn: $34 – $84 |
| Diversion on those units | 93% (our plant average) | Effectively 100% — never leaves our custody |
| Storage burden | Reduced | Removed |
| Minimum | ≈20 units/month/site | 24 units, 8 weeks |
| Requires | Empties accumulating | A measured turn rate |
One-way pooling, the underrated option
If you fill totes and ship them to customers, we recover them from your customer's site rather than yours. That removes your return freight entirely and stops your customers accumulating a wall of empties with your name on them — which, in our experience, is a sales problem as much as a logistics one.
It turned out to be the most popular feature we offer and we had almost not bothered building it.
Detailed questions
What is the smallest operation this makes sense for?
Roughly twenty units a month at a single site, or any multi-site operation where totes accumulate faster than anyone wants to deal with. Below that a transactional sale is simpler and we will say so. Above about a hundred a month, closed loop usually beats pure buyback.
How is a multi-site programme managed?
One agreement, one invoice, one counterparty, and a collection schedule per site. Each site gets the staging card and a count threshold that triggers a pickup, so nobody has to call. The schedule and the threshold do the work.
What if a site's volume changes?
Thresholds are adjusted on request with no renegotiation of price. Seasonal sites can run a seasonal schedule — a cider mill with eleven weeks of volume and nine months of nothing is a perfectly normal programme shape.
Does the price really hold for twelve months?
Yes, within a ±15% index band on resin and scrap steel. Budget certainty is most of the value of a programme, so we would rather hold the price and take the market risk ourselves inside that band. Outside it, the clause triggers and we show you the index movement.
Can we include our customers' sites?
That is one-way pooling, and yes. It is quoted per unit recovered against current routing rather than on a flat schedule, because it depends entirely on where your customers are. Send us a list of destination postal codes and we will tell you which fall on existing corridors.
What is in the diversion statement exactly?
Units received by grade by month against your serials; the split between returned to service, rebottled, fabricated and regrind; pounds of HDPE and steel kept in service; estimated CO₂e avoided with the method and its range shown; process water saved; and landfill tonnage, which is zero with the auditable basis. Written to be quoted directly in a corporate disclosure.
Will you tell us if the programme is the wrong structure?
Yes, and we have. Two of our first-year closed-loop customers were better off buying outright once we had three months of real turn data. Saying so cost us revenue and kept the accounts.
What happens to units you cannot resell?
They go through the same routing as everything else — second-look review, then fabrication, cage-only sale, base recovery or regrind. Your statement shows the split, which means you can see exactly how much of your own fleet got reused as objects rather than destroyed as material. That number is the one worth putting in a disclosure.
How many a month, across how many sites?
Those two numbers are enough to draft a programme. Allow two to three business days — we route the collection schedule before we price it.