We buy used corrugated and gaylords from docks, MRFs, farms and plants. Usually it goes smoothly. Sometimes a load arrives and does not match what was described, and we have to decide between re-pricing it, sending it back, or baling it and telling the seller what happened.
Between 2024 and 2026 that happened 304 times. We coded every case, because a pattern of disappointments is the cheapest market research available.
The codes
| Reason | Share | Usually recoverable? |
|---|---|---|
| Moisture beyond grading tolerance | 28% | No |
| Grade overstated by the seller | 24% | Yes, by re-pricing |
| Count materially short | 14% | Yes |
| Mixed sizes described as matched | 11% | Yes, by re-pricing |
| Contamination (film, foam, food) | 9% | Partially |
| Wax-coated board included | 6% | No |
| Hazardous-material markings present | 4% | No |
| Wrong product entirely | 4% | No |
Moisture, again
Twenty-eight percent, and almost none of it was rain. The dominant story is the same every time: material stored outside 'just for a few days', or stacked directly on concrete in a building without a vapour barrier, or loaded into a cold trailer that then sweated into a warm dock.
The seller is almost never being dishonest. They looked at the stack, it looked dry, and board that has been to 18% moisture and dried back to 10% looks completely normal. The flutes have taken a set that no amount of drying reverses.
If you remember one thing from this piece: never store corrugated directly on concrete, and never leave it outside, even overnight, even covered.
Grade overstatement
The second largest category, and a definitional problem rather than a dishonesty problem. 'Used', 'good condition' and 'A-grade' have no agreed meaning in this trade. A seller calling something grade A is usually comparing it to the worst material on their own dock.
This is exactly why we published our grading standard with the nine inspection points and the four hard disqualifiers. It is not generosity — it is self-defence. A written standard means the conversation is about a specific panel rather than two people's adjectives.
Count shortfalls
Fourteen percent, and the cause is nearly always the same phrase: 'approximately a pallet'. A pallet of gaylords is between 20 and 24 knocked-down containers depending on wall and size. A pallet of 18-inch cubes is a very different number. Approximately is not a quantity.
We now ask for a count before quoting, and where a seller genuinely cannot count, we agree a weigh-ticket basis in advance so nobody is surprised at the gate.
The four that cannot be recovered
- Wax-coated board. No viable outlet in a standard OCC stream. One pallet can downgrade a whole load.
- Hazardous-material markings still attached. A regulatory matter, not a judgement call.
- Food contamination that cannot be separated. Grease contaminates the mill's water loop.
- Moisture through the flutes. The structure is gone and no process restores it.
What a good inbound load looks like
- Stored under roof, on pallets, since the day it was generated.
- Described with dimensions and a count, not adjectives and approximations.
- One photograph of the stack with a tape measure in frame.
- A specific statement about what is in it that should not be — wax, film, foam, foreign objects.
- A named contact who has physically looked at it.
What we changed on our side
We stopped quoting from descriptions. Every inbound quote now requires a photograph, and we say what we are looking for in it. Rejection rate fell by just over a third in the following year, which is a better result than any amount of contract language would have produced.
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.