We get asked to audit packaging streams fairly often, and we are happy to do it. But the first pass is something you can do yourself, in a morning, and you will learn more from doing it than from reading our report about it. Here is exactly how we run one.
What you need
- A tape measure and a notepad. Not a laptop — you will be climbing on things.
- Ninety minutes with no meetings.
- Access to the dock, the compactor or baler, the packaging store and the rack aisles.
- Someone from receiving who has worked there more than a year. This person is the most valuable instrument you have.
Step 1 — Count what leaves (20 minutes)
Stand at your waste stream. Compactor, baler, dumpster, whatever it is. For twenty minutes, look at every piece of corrugated going in and sort it mentally into three piles: intact containers, flattened shippers, genuinely destroyed board.
Write down the rough proportions. On a typical dock we find 15–25% of what goes into the waste stream is an intact, reusable container. If your number is above 10%, you have found money before you have finished your coffee.
Step 2 — Measure five boxes (15 minutes)
Pick five boxes you use most. Measure them properly: inside dimensions, length × width × height, with length being the longer side of the open face. Note the wall construction by looking at the cut edge — count the fluted layers.
Then find the Box Maker's Certificate — the round stamp, usually on a bottom flap — and write down whether it carries an ECT or a Mullen rating. You will need this later and almost nobody has it to hand.
Step 3 — Check the pallet fit (10 minutes)
Take a loaded pallet of each of your top sizes and look at it from directly above. Is the top layer flush with the deck edge, proud of it, or short of it?
- Flush is the target. Full compression strength retained.
- Half an inch proud loses roughly 15–20% of compression strength and takes a hit on every rack move.
- An inch proud loses 30% and typically costs three trips of container life.
- Short of the deck exposes the pallet edge instead, which damages the pallet.
Also measure the pallets themselves. A "48 × 40 GMA" pallet in the real world ranges from 47.5 to 48.5 inches. If your containers are specified flush to 48, half your pallets are giving you an overhang.
Step 4 — Walk the rack aisles (15 minutes)
Look for crushed bottom boxes, bowed container walls and anything leaning. Note where in the building the damage clusters. It is almost never evenly distributed — there is usually one aisle, one dock door or one shift where it concentrates, and that is a handling conversation rather than a packaging one.
Step 5 — Open the packaging store (15 minutes)
Count how many distinct box sizes you hold. Then ask your receiving person which ones actually move.
The pattern we find almost everywhere: eleven sizes held, four that move, three that were specified for a product line discontinued two years ago, and a pallet of something nobody can identify. Consolidating sizes is usually worth more than any price negotiation, because size-run consistency drives used-box pricing harder than volume does.
Step 6 — Ask three questions (15 minutes)
- "What breaks most often?" — the answer is specific and nobody has asked them before.
- "What do we throw away that you think we shouldn't?" — receiving staff always know.
- "Where do the empties go?" — if the answer is vague, nobody owns the return leg, which is the number one reason reuse programmes fail.
What to do with your findings
You should now have six numbers: the reusable fraction of your waste stream, your five main box specs, your pallet overhang, your damage clusters, your real SKU count, and the name of whoever owns the empties.
Every failed reuse programme we have seen was missing the last of those six. Not the packaging spec — the name.
Take those to any supplier, including us, and you will get a far better conversation than the one that starts with "what's your best price on 18-inch cubes?" You will also be able to tell immediately whether the person across the table knows what they are talking about.
When to call somebody in
If your audit turns up a reusable fraction above 20%, multiple sites with transfers between them, or a seasonal peak that triples your volume, the second pass is worth doing properly with somebody who does it weekly. Those three situations have enough money in them to justify the time.
Our pieces are written by the people who do the work rather than by a content agency, which is why they contain more numbers and fewer adjectives than is fashionable. If a figure here does not match your experience, we would genuinely like to hear about it — two of our published coefficients have changed that way.