IBC ToteMarketEST. 2009
Our story · the plant

The Page
Blvd plant.

✿ Quote ticket — routed to a live graderYard details

Want to come and look? Mention 'will-call inspection' and the grade you are considering, and we will stage pallets for you.

Who you are
Letters only
Letters only
A working address — we reply in writing
US or Canada, 10 digits — e.g. (314) 884-0192
Optional
Where it is going
Optional
Two-letter code, e.g. MO or ON
US ZIP (63132) or Canadian (M5V 2T6)
What you need
Pick one or describe it
What you need us to do
Optional — leave blank and we will advise
Whole units
Optional, but the more detail the tighter the quote

required. Phone and postal code are checked against real US and Canadian formats — a mistyped one is refused rather than silently lost.

An outdoor reclaim yard at golden hour, rows of used IBC totes on gravel in front of an open-sided shed
The staging yard at the end of a shift. Everything here has been graded once and is waiting on a route.
Short answer

One site, eight stations, one fence. 10275 Page Industrial Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63132. About 6,000 square feet under roof and two acres of yard handling roughly 240 containers a working day. The grading pad, wash line, test rig, rebottling bench, fabrication shop and regrind bunker are all inside it — which is the mechanical reason a container gets assessed once instead of four times.

  1. Scale house and gate. Every inbound trailer weighs in and out. The difference is our tonnage record, and it is the reason the weight figures on our impact pages are scale tickets rather than estimates. The gate also holds the quarantine bay for any load that smells wrong on arrival.
  2. The grading pad. A covered concrete pad where containers come off the trailer and nothing else happens until each data plate has been photographed and its prior contents logged against the serial number. Twenty-seven inspection points by hand, about four minutes a unit, two graders working. This is the most important twelve square metres in the building — everything downstream depends on what is decided here.
  3. The wash line. Four stages. Ambient pre-rinse to displace bulk residue before any heat is applied. Hot caustic recirculation, 160–180 °F, 1.5–2.5% sodium hydroxide, rotating spray head through the 6-inch opening. Potable rinse to a measured neutral pH on a calibrated meter. Sanitising rinse, inverted drain and warm-air dwell. The caustic charge runs on a closed loop through a three-stage separator and a carbon polish, so make-up water is under 9 gallons a unit.
  4. The pressure-test rig. Air-hold at 3 psi with a timed hold. Every unit that will be sold as Grade A or better goes on it after washing and after a new gasket is fitted. The rig prints the result, and the result goes on the paperwork — which is the difference between a tested tote and a tote somebody says is fine.
  5. The rebottling bench. Teardown, weld and geometry inspection, a straightening jig for out-of-true frames, an abrasive blast cabinet, and a spray booth for zinc-rich primer and topcoat. Then a new virgin bladder, new valve, new cap and new gasket, and back to the test rig. About one cage in seven is rejected here and credited as steel.
  6. The fabrication shop. A heated-blade jig for top-cuts, a welding bay working mostly in reclaimed cage tube, bulkhead drilling and sealing, and a TIG station for stainless with a passivation tank. This is where the hard 7% of intake gets turned into planters, brewers, stands and frames instead of flake.
  7. The parts store. Valves, adapters, caps, gaskets, sight tubes and sleeves — a mix of new stock and parts recovered from scrapped units, kept physically separated and labelled, because selling a reclaimed valve as new would be the easiest small dishonesty in this building and we would rather not start.
  8. The regrind bunker. The last stop, and the smallest. Granulator, flake wash, centrifuge, hot-air dryer, pelletiser. Roughly nine weeks of holding capacity, which exists specifically so that losing a regrind buyer would not force us to landfill anything. Nothing enters without a second grader's signature.

The plant, in numbers

Facility figures
MeasureFigure
Under roof≈6,000 sq ft
Surfaced yard≈2 acres
Throughput≈240 containers / working day
Annual intake66,300 containers (2025)
Wash line stages4
Make-up water per toteUnder 9 gal
Grading points per unit27
Grading time per unit≈4 minutes
Regrind holding capacity≈9 weeks
Loading doors4 – 7

Visiting

Mon – Thu
7:00 – 17:00 CT, loading to 16:00
Friday
7:00 – 15:00 CT, dispatch to 14:00
Saturday
8:00 – 12:00, appointment only
Entry
From Page Industrial Blvd, scale house right
PPE
Closed-toe boots, long trousers
Full hours and address

Plant questions

Can I visit?

Yes. Will-call inspection is welcome during yard hours and Saturday mornings by appointment. Email ahead with the grade and quantity you are considering and we will stage the pallets and have the paperwork ready. Closed-toe boots and long trousers — it is an active forklift yard and the wash pad is wet.

Where do trucks check in?

Enter from Page Industrial Boulevard, check in at the scale house on your right, then stage at doors 4 through 7. Trailers over 53 feet need to back in from the east apron. Inbound loads are weighed in and out, which is where our tonnage figures come from.

How big is the operation?

About 6,000 square feet under roof — wash line, rebottling bench, fabrication shop, parts store — plus roughly two acres of surfaced yard for staging and the regrind bunker. It handles 66,000 containers a year, which works out to about 240 a working day.

Why is everything on one site?

Because every handoff between companies adds a truck, a margin and a chance for a container to become somebody's inconvenience and therefore somebody's landfill. One fence means a container is assessed once and routed once. That is the mechanical reason our diversion rate is 93% rather than an effort of will.

Next step

Come and inspect before you buy

Email ahead with the grade and quantity and the pallets will be staged when you arrive.