The short version
- Volume grew 7% on a flat footprint — growth now comes from cycle count, not acreage.
- Food-grade demand outran supply for the fourth year running.
- Refusal rate rose to 6.4%, mostly from one broker channel we later dropped.
- We under-scheduled harvest leasing and pushed two deliveries late. That was our error.
The headline numbers
| Measure | 2023 | 2024 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Containers handled | 36,800 | 39,400 | +7.1% |
| HDPE kept in service | 4.9M lb | 5.3M lb | +8.2% |
| Landfill diversion | 98.1% | 98.4% | +0.3 pt |
| Wash water recovered | 93% | 94% | +1 pt |
| Fresh water per container | 7.6 gal | 7.0 gal | −7.9% |
| Offered stock refused | 5.8% | 6.4% | +0.6 pt |
| Employees | 21 | 23 | +2 |
| Site area | 3.4 acres | 3.4 acres | unchanged |
The line I care most about is the last one. Volume grew 7% on the same 3.4 acres and with two more people. Growth is now coming from throughput per container and from cycle count, not from taking more land — which is what a reuse business is supposed to look like once it is working.
What people actually bought
| Product | Share of units sold | Change on 2023 | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grade A washed industrial | 41% | +4 pt | Growing steadily; the reliable core |
| Grade B rinsed | 22% | −3 pt | Under-bought relative to its usefulness |
| Rebottled | 15% | +2 pt | Driven by biotech and beverage specs |
| Grade A food-safe | 12% | flat | Supply-limited, not demand-limited |
| Grade C as-is | 6% | −2 pt | Construction demand softened |
| New | 4% | flat | We are comfortable with this staying small |
The Grade B decline bothers me, because it is a pricing-perception problem rather than a product problem. A rinsed container with a documented history is entirely adequate for agriculture, irrigation, wash water and construction, and it is 25% cheaper than the A that most of those buyers actually ordered. We are writing more about that this year.
Food-grade: the constraint we cannot engineer around
Fourth consecutive year where food-grade demand exceeded what we could supply, and it is worth being clear that this is not a capacity problem. Our food line could wash considerably more than it does. The constraint is intake: we can only sell a container as food-grade if a food producer emptied it and we can name the shipper.
We took in 3,900 food-history containers in 2024 and could have sold something closer to 5,200. The gap shows up every September as a waiting list.
The honest answer for buyers is either to reserve by June or to buy rebottled, which sidesteps the prior-contents question entirely with a new virgin bottle for about $50 more per unit. We say this a lot and it is still the correct advice.
The 6.4% we turned away
Our refusal rate rose, which is not a good number to see moving upward. Breaking it down showed the cause was concentrated rather than general.
| Reason for refusal | Share of refusals |
|---|---|
| Prior contents cannot be named | 44% |
| Chemical swelling or soft wall | 21% |
| Stress-crazing past the point of testing | 17% |
| Cage or base-ring failure beyond repair | 11% |
| Paperwork on regulated empties inadequate | 7% |
Roughly two thirds of the increase traced to a single broker channel. We audited them, showed them the data, and eventually stopped buying from them in early 2025. Our refusal rate has since come back down, which tells you the process worked and also that it should have run a year earlier.
Two things we got wrong
The harvest scheduling one first, because it cost two customers real inconvenience. We under-reserved food-grade leasing stock for autumn. Crush came early across the North Bay and three leasing customers called their delivery windows within the same ten days. We covered it by pulling forward a wash batch and running a Saturday shift, and two deliveries still went out late.
We now hold a 15% buffer on food-grade leasing stock through September, and we tell customers the buffer exists so they can plan against it rather than hope.
The second is duller and more expensive: we should have bought the second cage-straightening jig in 2022. It arrived in September 2024. For two years the rebottling bench was the constraint on our highest-margin product because one jig meant one cage at a time. The jig cost $18,000 and the delay cost considerably more than that in foregone rebottling.
What 2025 looks like from here
- Leasing continues to grow faster than outright sales, particularly in the North Bay. We are sizing the pool accordingly.
- Rebottling capacity roughly doubles now the second jig is running, which should push rebottled past 20% of units.
- We are formalising the supplier audit process that caught the refusal problem, and applying it to every new intake channel.
- Diversion reporting for customer accounts becomes standard rather than on request.
And the target we will not hit and will keep chasing: getting the landfill line under one per cent. It sat at 1.6% in 2024. The blockers are composite pallet trim and bonded gasket rubber, and neither is solvable at our end alone.
Written by Marisol Trejo, founder & managing partner at IBC Totes San Francisco. Published January 16, 2025. Spotted something wrong? Tell us — we would rather fix it than defend it.