Recover
We collect used bulk boxes from plants, distribution centres and warehouses across the Houston metro — including the ones everybody else would have compacted.
Houston, Texas · Since 2009
Used boxes.New standards.
We buy, grade, recondition, sell, haul and recycle bulk corrugated across Texas — so a box built for five trips does not die after one. Same-day stock on standard 48×40s. Written quotes in one business day. No phone tag, because we do not have a phone.
38,000+boxes graded a year
6average lives per box
1 dayquote turnaround
0structural fiber landfilled
Request a quote
Tell us what you need — or what you're sitting on
One form covers buying, selling, recycling, freight and fabrication. A Houston dispatcher reads every submission and answers in writing, usually the same day.
The yard
This is what our stock actually looks like
What we doEight things, one dock,
Eight things, one dock,
zero handoffs.
Most suppliers do one leg of this. We do the whole loop, which is why the same trailer can drop graded boxes and take your empties home.
Buy used gaylord boxesGraded, sorted, knocked down, ready to loadSell your gaylord boxesWe pay for clean bulk corrugatedRecycling & balingOCC #11 and #12 to regional millsFreight & transportDry van, flatbed, hot shot, backhaul pairingReconditioning & repairPatch, re-flap, cut down, re-gradeReusable box programsClosed-loop pools with monthly reportingUpcycled fabricationDividers, pads, partitions, displaysWarehouse cleanoutsWe haul the whole mess and settle by weight
The loop
Six stations. A box only leaves at the last one.
This is the actual route a box takes through our yard on E Richey Rd. Nothing skips a station, including the ones that arrive looking finished.
Grade
Six-point inspection on every box: corners, bottom seam, walls, flaps, moisture, odour. Cosmetics never change a grade. Geometry always does.
Recondition
Patches, re-taped seams, replacement flaps, cut-downs to a shorter wall. Roughly a fifth of what comes back needs a hand to get another two trips.
Redeploy
Graded stock goes back out to buyers who need a working box today, not a manufacturing slot in four weeks.
Refabricate
Board that will never be a box again becomes dividers, layer pads, partitions, display bases and custom inserts on our fabrication table.
Recycle
Whatever is left is stripped of metal and plastic, baled as OCC and sold to regional mills. It is new liner inside five weeks. Nothing structural goes to landfill.
The house specialityThe Grade Decoder.
The Grade Decoder.
Six taps to a real spec.
Most buyers order the wrong box because nobody ever explained the relationship between material density, storage time, humidity and wall count. Our decoder walks that logic in public and hands you a wall count, a grade and a size you can paste straight into a purchase order — then drops it into a quote request if you want us to fill it.
01
Load weight
Weigh one full box. Not the estimate.
02
Stack height
The bottom box carries everything above it.
03
Storage time
Corrugated creeps. Months change the spec.
04
Environment
A humid dock costs 30% of your rating.
05
Who sees it
Cosmetics decide grade, not strength.
06
Material class
Powders and pellets want eight sides.
Size chart
Twelve stocked footprints, and the reason each one exists.
Every size in our catalogue solves a specific physics problem. Here are six of them — the full chart has capacities, truckload counts and a page for each size.
| Size (ID) | Walls | Capacity | Volume | Per 53′ | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 48″ × 40″ × 36″ | 2-wall to 4-wall | 1,200 – 2,800 lb | 40 cu ft | 480 | The default. Regrind, textiles, plastics, e-scrap, retail returns. |
| 48″ × 40″ × 30″ | 2-wall to 3-wall | 1,000 – 2,000 lb | 33.3 cu ft | 540 | Dense material — metal turnings, glass cullet, wet fiber, minerals. |
| 48″ × 40″ × 24″ | 2-wall to 3-wall | 900 – 1,800 lb | 26.7 cu ft | 600 | Line-side WIP, heavy castings, ergonomic hand-pick stations. |
| 48″ × 40″ × 42″ | 3-wall to 4-wall | 1,800 – 3,000 lb | 46.7 cu ft | 420 | Fluff, foam, film, EPS, light plastics, apparel. |
| 48″ × 40″ × 48″ | 4-wall to 5-wall | 2,500 – 4,000 lb | 53.3 cu ft | 360 | Baled film, bulk pellets in liners, long parts, seat cushions. |
| 40″ × 48″ × 45″ | 4-wall | 2,400 – 3,400 lb | 50 cu ft | 390 | Automotive interiors, converted foam, bulky returns. |
Grades
Five honest categories. No creative naming.
Anyone can call a box 'good'. We publish the pass/fail thresholds so you can check our work on your own dock.
New / never filled
Straight from the corrugator, unused, printed or plain.
- Trips left
- 4–6 trips typical
- Price
- Highest cost per box, lowest cost per trip if you only get one trip
Grade A used
One fill, clean, no repairs, no cuts. The sweet spot.
- Trips left
- 3–5 trips typical
- Price
- Roughly 35–55% of new, depending on wall count and volume
Grade B used
Two or three uses. Up to two clean repairs. Structurally honest.
- Trips left
- 2–3 trips typical
- Price
- Roughly 20–35% of new
Grade C used
Working boxes. Cosmetically rough, structurally usable, cheap.
- Trips left
- 1–2 trips typical
- Price
- Roughly 10–20% of new
Scrap / OCC
End of life as a container. Beginning of life as fiber.
- Trips left
- Reborn as new liner within weeks
- Price
- Paid by the ton at the prevailing regional OCC index
Every threshold, in detail
What passes, what fails, what a repair counts as, and how to grade a box in ninety seconds without training.
Impact, measuredReuse beats recycling.
Reuse beats recycling.
By about an order of magnitude.
Manufacturing a new tri-wall box produces roughly 13 lb of CO₂e. Putting an existing box back into service costs about 1.2 lb, all-in, including inspection, repair and local freight. There is no offset in that number and no certificate. The box already exists — every extra trip divides its emissions by a bigger number.
0+Boxes graded per year
0 tonsFiber diverted annually
0k lbCO₂e avoided by reuse
0%Inbound volume kept in service
Who we load
Six industries, six completely different box specs.
Resin does not want the same container as apparel, and e-scrap does not want either. Pick your world and we will tell you exactly what to order.
GRADE A / B
Plastics & Resin Processors
Regrind, purge, pellets and film — the biggest single user of bulk corrugated on the Gulf Coast.
GRADE 1A / AFood & Agriculture
Produce, nuts, grain, dry ingredients — where sanitation rules the spec.
GRADE A / BElectronics & E-Scrap Recyclers
Heavy, sharp, valuable and audited to the pound.
GRADE B / CTextiles & Apparel
Light, bulky, and priced by the cubic foot rather than the pound.
GRADE 1A / AChemical & Industrial
Powders, minerals, catalysts and compounds that punish weak packaging.
GRADE A / BRetail, 3PL & E-Commerce Returns
The reverse-logistics flood — and the boxes that soak it up.
Field notes
Written on the dock, not in a marketing department.
Freight math, grading procedure, wall-count physics and what actually happens to a box after its last trip.
Buying guide · 7 min
Used vs. new gaylord boxes: the honest comparison
A used Grade A gaylord box costs 35–55% of new, carries the same load in practice, and avoids roughly 12 lb of CO₂e per box. Here is where used wins, and the three cases where it does not.
Operations · 6 minHow to grade a gaylord box in 90 seconds on your own dock
A repeatable six-point inspection your dock team can run in a minute and a half: corners, bottom, walls, flaps, moisture and odour. Includes the pass/fail thresholds we use on our own yard.
Logistics · 8 minThe freight math nobody shows you: why the empty leg costs more than the box
A 53-foot trailer holds about 480 knocked-down 48×40×36 gaylord boxes, or roughly 26 pallets of assembled ones. Here is how to calculate landed cost per box and why buying local beats buying cheap.
Common questions
Straight answers.
Why don't you have a phone number?
Deliberate. Every quote we issue is in writing — sizes, grades, quantities, freight and terms on one page you can forward to purchasing. Phone quotes get misremembered. Send the form and you get a document instead of a conversation you have to reconstruct.
What is the standard gaylord box size?
48" × 40" × 36". It matches the GMA pallet footprint exactly, which is the whole reason it exists in that dimension. Next most common are 48×40×30 for dense material and 48×40×42 for light bulky material.
Are used gaylord boxes actually as strong?
A Grade A used box has one prior fill, no cuts and square corners — it performs within a few percent of new for every practical industrial load. Strength lives in the flute geometry, and geometry does not care about ink, labels or scuffing.
How fast can I get boxes?
Same-day pickup from the yard on standard sizes in stock. Next-day delivery across most of the Houston metro. Two to four days on scheduled lanes to DFW, Austin, San Antonio and the Golden Triangle.