The short version
- HDPE regrind from IBC bottles is downcycled, not turned back into new bottles.
- Food-contact and pressure applications require virgin resin; no amount of enthusiasm changes that.
- Publishing the landfill line is what makes the diversion figure a measurement rather than a claim.
- Recycling is a failure state for us — every tonne granulated is reuse we could not extend.
Why we publish the tonnage
A diversion percentage without a denominator is marketing. "98% diverted" means nothing if the 2% is measured against a number you chose after the fact, and it is trivially easy to make the figure look better by excluding the material you turned away at the gate.
So here is a full quarter, weighed across our certified truck scale, with destinations named. Q3 2024, July through September.
The quarter in tonnes
| Stream | Tonnes | Share of inbound | Destination | Becomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Resold reconditioned | 312.6 | 54.4% | Customers, back into service | Same bottle, next cycle |
| Rebottled and resold | 124.9 | 21.7% | Customers | Reused cage, new bottle |
| Cage and parts recovery | 65.4 | 11.4% | Internal parts stock | Straightened cages, valves, gaskets |
| HDPE granulation | 55.1 | 9.6% | Three regional moulders | Drainage pipe, chocks, pallets |
| Steel to scrap processor | 9.2 | 1.6% | Bay Area processor | Remelted structural steel |
| Landfill | 2.1 | 1.5%* | Permitted disposal, manifested | Nothing |
The granulation figure of 55.1 tonnes is bottle plastic only. Adding the composite pallet decks we granulate alongside brings the plastic total to 91.4 tonnes. Steel recovered across cages, pallet runners and scrap totalled 44.1 tonnes.
Where the regrind actually goes
This is the part that gets over-claimed across the industry, so let me be precise. Our HDPE regrind does not become new IBC bottles. It cannot. Food-contact and pressure-rated applications require virgin resin, and post-use regrind from containers with mixed and imperfectly documented histories does not qualify for either.
What it becomes is genuinely useful and slightly less glamorous: corrugated drainage pipe, wheel chocks, plastic pallets, kerbing and parking blocks. Three regional moulders take essentially all of it. The material is downcycled — it goes into a lower-value application than it came from — and that is the honest word for it.
Which is why recycling is our failure state
The 2.1 tonnes that went to landfill
Three categories, and none of them have a good answer yet.
- Composite pallet trim with cured resin bonded to it — roughly 1.1 tonnes. The HDPE and the contaminant cannot be economically separated.
- Gasket rubber bonded to metal fittings — about 0.6 tonnes. Manual separation costs more than the recovered material is worth.
- Bottles whose prior contents make granulation unsafe — about 0.4 tonnes. These are the containers we refuse at intake and cannot pass to a recycler in good conscience.
All of it goes to a permitted disposal facility under manifest. We would like this number to be zero and it will not be soon. The first category is a design problem in composite pallets rather than something a reconditioner can solve.
If you want this for your own reporting
Every account can have a quarterly diversion statement built from real purchase and return records — containers bought, containers returned, mass diverted, estimated avoided CO₂e — rather than a model. Several customers put those figures straight into CDP submissions and municipal sustainability filings.
There is no charge for it and you do not need to be a large account. Ask the quote desk to switch reporting on when you open one. The only thing we will not do is give you a number we cannot show the workings for.
Written by Priya Raghunathan, wash chemistry & compliance at IBC Totes San Francisco. Published October 22, 2024. Spotted something wrong? Tell us — we would rather fix it than defend it.