We started in 2009 buying corrugated that was on its way into a compactor. The business has changed shape several times since — mostly because we kept discovering that the thing we were throwing away still had value.
Tell us what you have or what you need. A real person in Houston reads every one of these — usually within a couple of hours during dock time.
Including the parts that did not work, because a company history with no mistakes in it is a brochure.
We started in the worst year to start anything. Plants along the ship channel were closing lines and clearing warehouses, and there was more good corrugated going into compactors than anyone could count. The first year was two people, one pickup, and a rented bay off Rankin Road — buying boxes nobody wanted and selling them to processors who could not justify new stock.
For two years we sold boxes the way everyone else did: by the pallet, sight unseen, and argued about condition afterwards. In 2011 we built a proper grading line and wrote the six-point inspection down. Sales dropped for a quarter because we were now telling people their boxes were Grade B. Then they came back, because a customer who gets the grade they paid for orders again.
The Rankin Road bay could hold about 900 boxes. We moved to the current yard on E Richey Rd, just off I-45 north, because it put a truck within same-day reach of Harris County, Montgomery County and the ship channel without touching the 610 loop at rush hour. That decision has done more for our freight costs than any negotiation since.
Genuinely the most controversial thing this business has ever done. We were quoting on the phone, misremembering the numbers, and re-litigating the same order three times. So we took the number off the website and put everything in writing. We lost a handful of customers who wanted to talk. We kept the ones who wanted a document they could forward to purchasing.
We had been sending scrap fiber to a third party and never seeing the ticket. Bringing baling in-house meant we could put a certified weight in front of a customer the same day. It also meant discovering that roughly a third of what customers labelled scrap was still a working box — which changed how we buy, permanently.
A resin compounder in Pasadena asked whether we could just keep their boxes circulating instead of selling them new ones every month. We sized a pool, built a swap route, trained their dock team on where to put a box knife, and their packaging spend fell by just over half in two cycles. We have been running loops ever since.
Baling boxes with three good walls always felt wasteful. We put in a cutting table and started making dividers, layer pads and pallet caps from recovered board. It began as a way to use scrap and turned into a line of business, mostly because short runs of 50 to 500 pieces are miserable to buy new and easy to make from board we already own.
We put the grading thresholds, the freight math, the wall-count derates and the whole specification logic on the website, free, including the parts a salesperson would normally hold back. The reasoning was straightforward: our advantage is a yard full of graded stock in Houston, not an information gap.
Recover, grade, recondition, redeploy, refabricate, recycle. Roughly 38,000 boxes graded a year, 94% of inbound volume kept in service or converted rather than landfilled, and lanes running north to Dallas, west to Austin and San Antonio, and east to the Golden Triangle.
We do not have a phone number and we are not planning to get one. Every quote is a one-page document with sizes, grades, quantities, freight and terms on it — something you can forward to purchasing without reconstructing a conversation from memory.
Our grading criteria are on the website. If you think a delivered pallet was mis-graded, you can check it against the same six points we used. We would rather re-grade a load than have someone stop trusting the categories.
Over-specified wall counts, Grade A boxes for material that never leaves your building, assembled delivery when knocked down would do. Selling someone a more expensive box than they need is a one-order strategy.
Every load that arrives for baling goes across the grading line first. It costs us labour, it earns customers a better settlement, and it is the reason our diversion numbers are what they are.
We operate from 1050 E Richey Rd, Houston, TX 77073, on the north side of Houston just off I-45. It is not a showroom. It is a working yard with a grading line, a baler, a fabrication table, a stack of trailers and several thousand boxes sorted by grade and wall count.
You are welcome to come and look at what you would be buying — most customers who do end up ordering, because the difference between a description of a Grade B box and an actual Grade B box is instructive. Dock hours are Monday to Friday 7:00 to 17:00 and Saturday 8:00 to 12:00, Central.
About two dozen of us: grading line, baler, fabrication, drivers, and the quote desk that reads every form submission that arrives. The quote desk is the part customers interact with most, and it is staffed by people who have worked the grading line — which is why the numbers you get back tend to hold up.
Mon–Fri 7:00 AM – 5:00 PM CT
Sat 8:00 AM – 12:00 PM CT
Sun closed
One business day, usually a couple of hours during dock time. No phone number — that is deliberate, and explained at length in the FAQ.
| Inside dimensions | Volume | Capacity | Per 53′ KD | Stock |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 48″ × 40″ × 36″ | 40 cu ft | 1,200 – 2,800 lb | 480 | Deep stock |
| 48″ × 40″ × 30″ | 33.3 cu ft | 1,000 – 2,000 lb | 540 | Deep stock |
| 48″ × 40″ × 24″ | 26.7 cu ft | 900 – 1,800 lb | 600 | Regular stock |
| 48″ × 40″ × 42″ | 46.7 cu ft | 1,800 – 3,000 lb | 420 | Regular stock |
| 48″ × 40″ × 48″ | 53.3 cu ft | 2,500 – 4,000 lb | 360 | Regular stock |
| 40″ × 48″ × 45″ | 50 cu ft | 2,400 – 3,400 lb | 390 | Seasonal |
| 41″ × 28″ × 25″ | 16.6 cu ft | 700 – 1,400 lb | 900 | Regular stock |
| 30″ × 30″ × 30″ | 15.6 cu ft | 500 – 900 lb | 1100 | Regular stock |
| 45″ × 30″ × 45″ | 35.2 cu ft | 1,500 – 2,200 lb | 560 | Seasonal |
| 47″ × 38″ × 44″ | 45.5 cu ft | 2,000 – 3,000 lb | 400 | Seasonal |
| 48″ × 48″ × 40″ | 53.3 cu ft | 2,800 – 4,500 lb | 320 | Made to order |
| 48″ × 40″ × 40″ | 44.4 cu ft | 2,500 – 4,000 lb | 400 | Regular stock |
Inside dimensions. Outside runs ½″ to 1½″ larger per dimension depending on wall count — use OD for racking and trailer clearances. Full size chart →
| Walls | Static load | Stack | Typical ECT |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2-wall | 1,000–1,200 lb | 2 high | 48–61 lb/in |
| 3-wall (tri-wall) | 1,800–2,000 lb | 2–3 high | 71–82 lb/in |
| 4-wall | 2,500–3,000 lb | 3 high | 90–110 lb/in |
| 5-wall | 4,000 lb+ | 3–4 high | 120+ lb/in |
Ratings assume dry, aligned, fully supported, short duration. Derating explained →
| Grade | Condition | Trips left |
|---|---|---|
| 1A | Straight from the corrugator, unused, printed or plain. | 4–6 trips typical |
| A | One fill, clean, no repairs, no cuts. The sweet spot. | 3–5 trips typical |
| B | Two or three uses. Up to two clean repairs. Structurally honest. | 2–3 trips typical |
| C | Working boxes. Cosmetically rough, structurally usable, cheap. | 1–2 trips typical |
| SCRAP | End of life as a container. Beginning of life as fiber. | Reborn as new liner within weeks |
| Condition | Factor | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Storage under a month | ×1.0 | No creep adjustment needed |
| One to six months loaded | ×1.4 | Corrugated creeps under sustained load |
| Over six months loaded | ×1.6 | Long-term storage |
| Dry warehouse | ×1.15 | Mild humidity exposure |
| Open dock, no A/C | ×1.3 | Most of Houston, most of the year |
| Outdoors or cooler | ×1.5 | Needs a lid as well |
Required load = full box weight × (stack − 1) × creep × humidity. Run it automatically →
| Area | Turnaround | Region |
|---|---|---|
| Houston | Same day, most ZIPs | Harris County |
| Pasadena & Deer Park | Same day | Ship Channel East |
| Conroe & The Woodlands | Same day | Montgomery County |
| Beaumont & Port Arthur | Next day, scheduled routes | Golden Triangle |
| Dallas–Fort Worth | Scheduled backhaul lanes | North Texas |
| San Antonio & Austin | Scheduled lanes, 2–4 days | I-35 Corridor |