Eight stations. Nothing moves backwards.
A circular economy diagram with arrows in it is easy to draw. This is the version with a building, a cadence and a cost attached to each step.
Put your boxes in the loop
Tell us roughly what you have and where, and we will tell you which step it enters at.
Straight to the grading floor at 9869 Meeks Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63132.
Or email sales@reboxesmarket.com. We have no phone line — dimensions and counts survive much better in writing.
Not sure of the size?
Fold a box in the browser, read off the cube and pallet fit, and send the spec straight through.
- 01
Recover
We collect used corrugated and gaylords from docks, MRFs, farms and plants — on scheduled routes, usually as a backhaul on a trailer that was returning empty anyway.
- 02
Grade
Every container is inspected by hand within 24 hours of arrival. Flap edges, corner squareness, liner colour, score integrity. A, B, C or recovery.
- 03
Repair
Anything repairable goes to the bench, not the baler. Flap splices, patch panels, re-scoring, edge reinforcement — all using recovered board.
- 04
Re-face
Label and residue removal, blank-out printing, optional single-colour marking. A box that looks presentable gets used; a box that looks like rubbish gets thrown away.
- 05
Re-issue
Re-graded, bundled, banded and released into saleable stock or back into a customer's dedicated pool, knocked down for freight efficiency.
- 06
Convert
Containers past structural reuse become dunnage, honeycomb panel, displays and upcycled goods. Material, not waste.
- 07
Recycle
Genuinely spent fibre is baled to mill grade #11 / #12 OCC with moisture control and contamination logging.
- 08
Report
Monthly diversion statements: tonnage reused, tonnage recycled, landfill avoided, CO₂e avoided — with every assumption attached.
Four honest failure modes.
We would rather tell you how this goes wrong than pretend it does not. Each of these has happened to us.
Nobody owns the empties
Outbound is somebody's job. Return almost never is. Pools die here more than anywhere else.
The footprint is half an inch out
A container that overhangs the pallet gets damaged in every rack move. Measure the pallets you actually have.
Grading happens too late
If you grade on outbound rather than inbound, damaged containers re-enter circulation and fail under load.
The pool is undersized
Without 20% slack you make emergency purchases of new containers — which is how a reuse programme buys virgin board.
Seven repairs, and the limits of each.
Just as important as what a bench can fix is what it cannot. A repaired box that fails is worse than a baled one, and attempting the impossible repairs is how a yard destroys its own grade scale.
| Operation | Bench time | Life recovered | Material | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flap splice | 3 – 5 min | 2 – 4 trips | Recovered board offcut | Not viable past two missing flaps |
| Patch panel | 6 – 9 min | 3 – 5 trips | Recovered board offcut | Cannot patch a load-bearing vertical corner |
| Re-scoring | 2 – 3 min | 2 – 3 trips | None | Will not square a rounded corner |
| Edge reinforcement | 5 – 7 min | 3 – 4 trips | Recovered board strip | Needs sound board either side |
| Label & residue removal | 2 – 6 min | Appearance | Minimal | Heavy residue needs blank-out print |
| Blank-out printing | 1 – 2 min | Appearance | Ink | Single colour only |
| Corner post insertion | 8 – 12 min | 4 – 6 trips | Laminated board post | Only on triple wall |
The nine points, in the order a grader checks them.
Ordered by how well each point predicts failure under load, not by how obvious it is. The first one is the least visible and the most important.
| # | What is checked | What disqualifies | Downgrades to |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bottom third of the long panel | Soft, fuzzed or delaminated board from tine strikes | Recovery |
| 2 | Vertical corner squareness | Corners bowed outward from over-stuffing | C, or recovery if severe |
| 3 | Liner colour banding | Patchy darkening indicating moisture cycling | Recovery |
| 4 | Flap edge condition | Fuzzed or feathered edges; missing flap corners | C, or bench repair |
| 5 | Score line integrity | Cracked rather than creased folds | C, or bench re-score |
| 6 | Manufacturer's joint | Separated glue line or pulled staples | Bench repair |
| 7 | Interior cleanliness | Residue, dust, previous product traces | C |
| 8 | Print and label residue | Heavy multi-colour print or continuous tape bands | B at best; re-face station |
| 9 | Top edge crush | Crushing on stacked or racked units | Bench reinforcement, else C |
What a bale is worth, and why.
Old Corrugated Containers is a traded commodity with published indices and a long history of violent swings. If you sell baled OCC without watching it, you are guessing.
| Grade | Specification | Moisture | Premium | Who buys it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ISRI #11 — OCC | Sorted, baled corrugated. Up to 5% prohibitives, 5% other paper. | ≤ 12% | Baseline | Domestic containerboard mills |
| ISRI #12 — Double-sorted OCC | Double-sorted, ≤1% prohibitives. New corrugated cuttings excluded. | ≤ 10% | +15 – 30% | Mills running recycled liner |
| ISRI #13 — New corrugated cuttings | Unused box plant trim, no print or wax. | ≤ 10% | +40 – 60% | High-grade liner mills |
| Mixed paper | Unsorted paper grades including corrugated. | ≤ 12% | −40 – 70% | Varies; occasionally a disposal cost |
| Wet or contaminated | Outside specification on moisture or prohibitives. | > 15% | Rejected or deducted | Nobody |
Every number we multiply by, in one table.
Take these, argue with them, substitute your own. Two have changed because a customer arrived with better data, which is the entire point of publishing them.
| Factor | Value we use | Range in literature | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Virgin corrugated, cradle-to-gate | 1.30 kg CO₂e / kg | 1.1 – 1.6 | Mid estimate; includes inbound freight |
| Recycled-content corrugated | 0.85 kg CO₂e / kg | 0.6 – 1.1 | Varies hugely with mill energy mix |
| Reuse cycle (collect, grade, repair, issue) | 0.215 kg CO₂e / kg | 0.17 – 0.25 | Our own measurement, trailer-allocated |
| Repair-and-reuse cycle | 0.275 kg CO₂e / kg | 0.22 – 0.33 | Adds bench labour and repair board |
| Conversion to honeycomb or dunnage | 0.49 kg CO₂e / kg | 0.4 – 0.6 | Destroys the container, keeps the sheet |
| Recycling to new board | 0.76 kg CO₂e / kg | 0.6 – 0.95 | Consumes one of the fibre's five to seven lives |
| Triple-wall gaylord board weight | 18.5 lb | 17 – 20 | 48 × 40 × 36, no lid |
| Median trips per gaylord | 9 | 4 – 14 observed | Marked-container study, n = 4,200 |
| Trailer packing efficiency | 72% | 65 – 80 | Knocked down and banded |
| Landfill density, loose OCC | 80 lb / yd³ | 50 – 110 | Used for volume-avoided figures |
We deliberately exclude end-of-life recycling credit, carbon stored in the fibre and avoided landfill methane. All three would improve our figures and all three are contested.
What comes off each machine, and how many fit a trailer.
Mills price on consistency as much as on grade. Auto-tie machines produce the most uniform bale weight, which is why they attract a better number per ton than their throughput alone would justify.
| Baler | Typical bale size | Bale weight | Bales per trailer | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vertical, small | 60 × 30 × 48" | 500 – 800 lb | 40 – 48 | Manual tie, lowest capital |
| Vertical, large | 60 × 30 × 60" | 800 – 1,100 lb | 36 – 44 | Still manual tie |
| Horizontal, manual tie | 60 × 30 × 48" | 900 – 1,300 lb | 34 – 40 | Continuous feed |
| Horizontal, auto-tie | 72 × 30 × 48" | 1,200 – 1,600 lb | 28 – 34 | Consistent weight; mills prefer it |
| Two-ram | 60 × 43 × 48" | 1,400 – 1,900 lb | 24 – 28 | Mixed-material sites |
| Year | Market level | What drove it |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Low | Post-import-restriction glut; some regions near zero |
| 2020 | Rising | E-commerce surge tightened supply of recovered fibre |
| 2021 | High | Containerboard demand peak; multi-year highs |
| 2022 | Falling | Demand correction as retail inventories unwound |
| 2023 | Low to moderate | Soft demand; mill downtime |
| 2024 | Moderate | Gradual recovery, regional spreads widened |
| 2025 | Moderate | Stable; export pull supported coastal markets |
| 2026 | Moderate to firm | Inland markets lagging coastal by a visible margin |
Direction only — published indices vary by region and by mill, and inland markets have been lagging coastal ones by a visible margin. We will tell you where your region sits rather than quoting a national average at you.
Five levels, and what each is good for.
No level of cleaning makes a used corrugated container suitable for direct food contact. What it does is make a container acceptable for its actual application, which is a different and answerable question.
| Level | Method | Suited to |
|---|---|---|
| Visual inspection only | Grading station check for residue and odour | General industrial, scrap, internal moves |
| Vacuum and blow-down | Compressed air and industrial vacuum | Resin, granulate, dusty materials |
| Label and residue removal | Mechanical removal at the re-face station | Anything customer-facing |
| Liner barrier | New FDA-compliant liner each cycle | Food ingredients, pet food, produce |
| Secure destruction | Shredding and baling with certification | Branded or regulated containers |
Every field on a diversion statement.
Formatted so your team can lift it straight into GRI 306 or EPA WasteWise without re-cutting the numbers, and with the coefficients attached so an auditor can check them.
| Field | Unit | Frequency | Maps to | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tonnage reused | short tons | Monthly | GRI 306-4 (diverted) | Reported separately from recycling, always |
| Tonnage recycled | short tons | Monthly | GRI 306-4 | Split by mill grade |
| Tonnage residual | short tons | Monthly | GRI 306-5 (directed to disposal) | With composition by material |
| Landfill avoided | tons and yd³ | Monthly | EPA WasteWise | 80 lb/yd³ for loose OCC |
| CO₂e avoided | kg | Monthly | Scope 3 cat. 1 and 5 | Coefficients attached every time |
| Contamination rate | % | Monthly | Internal quality | Published whether or not it flatters us |
| Trips per container | count | Quarterly | Circularity indicator | Pooled accounts only |
| Population and attrition | count and % | Quarterly | Asset reporting | With a coded reason for attrition |
| Cost per trip | currency | Quarterly | Commercial | The number that proves the programme works |