Blog · 40 pieces

Everything we have learned, written down.

No guest posts, no keyword padding and no borrowed statistics. Every piece here comes out of our own yard, our own mistakes or our own marked-container data — and every number has its workings attached.

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Questions raised by these pieces often become the next one.

Browse by subject

Specs (13)Operations (7)Field notes (5)Market (5)Sustainability (5)Buying guide (3)Freight (2)

Our standing offer

If you think one of our numbers is wrong, we will send you the spreadsheet. Two published coefficients have changed because a customer arrived with better data.

Latest · Field notesSeptember 18, 2026 · 7 min

How many trips does a box really get?

We tracked 4,200 marked gaylords through our yard for two years. The honest answer is between six and fourteen — and the difference is almost never the board.

Read it

Market9 min

Why your ZIP code moves the price more than your order size

Buyers assume volume is the main lever on used box pricing. On our own quote data it is the fourth most important factor, behind geography, size-run consistency and grade.

August 27, 2026

Specs6 min

ECT vs Mullen: what your carrier actually checks

Two stamps, two completely different tests, and a surprising amount of money riding on which one is printed in your box maker's certificate.

August 2, 2026

7 subjects

Pick the corner of the yard you care about.

Each subject has its own archive page. The same grading floor wrote all of them.

13 PIECES

Specs

Dimensions, construction, grades and the arithmetic that decides whether a box survives.

07 PIECES

Operations

Pools, benches, docks and the unglamorous process decisions that make reuse work.

05 PIECES

Field notes

What we actually see on the grading floor, written up with the numbers attached.

05 PIECES

Market

Pricing, seasonality and the commodity forces underneath used corrugated.

05 PIECES

Sustainability

Reuse, recycling and carbon — with every coefficient published so you can argue with it.

03 PIECES

Buying guide

How to specify, compare and buy packaging without being quietly over-charged.

02 PIECES

Freight

Empty boxes are mostly air, which breaks every normal freight intuition.

The next twelve.

Freight8 min

The hidden cost of a half-empty trailer

We weighed and cubed every outbound load for a quarter. A third of them left with more than 20% of the trailer unused, and the reasons were almost never about the boxes.

Jul 16, 2026

Sustainability9 min

The carbon maths of a reused gaylord

A defensible, source-able estimate — not a marketing number. Here is every assumption we make, so you can argue with it.

Jun 11, 2026

Market10 min

What a baler actually pays for

Old corrugated containers are a traded commodity with a published price that swings by a factor of five. If you are selling baled OCC without watching it, you are guessing.

Jun 4, 2026

Specs9 min

Octabins versus gaylords for resin: fourteen months of data

We tracked 1,900 bulk containers through three resin processors. The eight-sided ones lasted 40% longer and emptied in half the time — but they are not always the right answer.

May 21, 2026

Buying guide5 min

Reading a gaylord before you buy a truckload

Nine things to look at in the photograph your supplier sends you, in the order they predict failure.

May 4, 2026

Operations11 min

Run a box audit on your own dock in ninety minutes

You do not need a consultant to find out where your packaging money goes. You need a tape measure, a notebook and one uninterrupted morning.

Apr 30, 2026

Specs6 min

The five-minute test for a rackable pallet

Most pallets are condemned too early and a few dangerous ones stay in service for years. Here is the sequence our bench actually uses.

Apr 2, 2026

Sustainability6 min

What to do with boxes nobody wants

Delaminated, crushed, moisture-stained, oddly-sized. There is a hierarchy, and the dumpster sits at the very bottom of it.

Mar 22, 2026

Market7 min

Why we stopped selling boxes by weight

It is the easiest way to price used corrugated and it quietly rewards exactly the wrong behaviour. We changed in 2019 and it cost us customers.

Mar 12, 2026

Operations8 min

Stretch film is the most wasted material in your building

It is cheap per roll, invisible on a P&L, and most sites use two to three times more than the load actually needs. Here is how to find out which you are.

Feb 19, 2026

Specs9 min

Moisture: the quiet killer of reusable packaging

It is not rain. It is condensation from a cold trailer into a warm dock, and it destroys more reusable containers than forklifts do.

Jan 29, 2026

Operations8 min

Designing a box pool that does not leak

Reusable container programmes fail for boring reasons. Shrinkage, mismatched footprints, and nobody owning the return leg.

Jan 15, 2026

Complete archive

All 40 pieces, by year.

Everything we have published, oldest at the bottom. Nothing has been quietly removed.

2026

2025

2024

2023

Shorthand

Nineteen acronyms this trade uses without explaining.

The full glossary

BCT

Box Compression Test

BMC

Box Maker's Certificate

ECT

Edge Crush Test

FEFCO

European Federation of Corrugated Board Manufacturers

FOL

Full Overlap Slotted Container

GMA

Grocery Manufacturers Association (pallet)

HSC

Half Slotted Container

ISRI

Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries

ISTA

International Safe Transit Association

LTL

Less Than Truckload

MRF

Materials Recovery Facility

MSF

Thousand Square Feet

OCC

Old Corrugated Containers

OSC

Overlap Slotted Container

RSC

Regular Slotted Container

SCF

Sectional Center Facility

TAPPI

Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry

Truckload

WIP

Work In Progress

Keep going

Everything we have learned, written down.

Ask us something

How many trips does a box really get?

Why your ZIP code moves the price more than your order size

ECT vs Mullen: what your carrier actually checks

Pick the corner of the yard you care about.

Specs

Operations

Field notes

Market

Sustainability

Buying guide

Freight

The next twelve.

The hidden cost of a half-empty trailer

The carbon maths of a reused gaylord

What a baler actually pays for

Octabins versus gaylords for resin: fourteen months of data

Reading a gaylord before you buy a truckload

Run a box audit on your own dock in ninety minutes

The five-minute test for a rackable pallet

What to do with boxes nobody wants

Why we stopped selling boxes by weight

Stretch film is the most wasted material in your building

Moisture: the quiet killer of reusable packaging

Designing a box pool that does not leak

All 40 pieces, by year.

2026

2025

2024

2023

Nineteen acronyms this trade uses without explaining.

Size chart

Glossary

Box Studio