Roughly a sixth of what arrives at our gate cannot be resold as a box. That does not make it waste; it makes it material. Here is the order in which we try to use it.
Tier 1 — repair into resale
Flap splices, patch panels and re-scoring recover around 40% of what first-pass grading rejects. The bench is the most profitable square footage in our building.
Tier 2 — convert into dunnage
A box that cannot hold a load can still protect one. We die-cut pads, corner wrap, layer sheets and void fill from panels that are structurally spent but clean.
Tier 3 — honeycomb and panel
Laminated recovered board becomes honeycomb panel from half an inch to two inches thick. It replaces plywood in dunnage, display and light furniture at a quarter of the weight, and it is still 100% recyclable at the end.
Tier 4 — upcycled goods
- Retail displays, bins and pallet skirts.
- Event furniture and modular shop fittings.
- Planters and seed-paper products.
- Protective inserts for unrelated industries.
Tier 5 — baled OCC
Only now does it become a commodity. We bale to mill grade #11 and #12, control moisture, and log contamination so the mill gets what it paid for.
Tier 6 — the honest residual
Wax-coated board, heavily laminated stock and anything with food contamination that cannot be separated. It is a small fraction and we report it rather than hiding it inside a diversion percentage.
If a supplier claims 100% diversion with no residual, ask what they do with wax-coated produce boxes. The answer is usually illuminating.
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.