Forty-three straight answers.

A large corrugated bulk container sized to sit on a pallet, almost always 48 by 40 inches at the base in North America, built in three, four or five wall board and rated between roughly 700 and 2,500 pounds. The name comes from the Gaylord Container Company and has been generic industry vocabulary for decades.

After the Gaylord Container Company, which popularised the format in the mid-twentieth century. Like thermos or dumpster, the brand name became the generic term and now nobody thinks about the origin at all.

Bulk bins, bulk boxes, pallet boxes, tote boxes, skid boxes, octabins for the round versions, and occasionally bulk cartons. On most docks the words are used interchangeably.

48 by 40 by 36 inches. That is 40 cubic feet, about 299 gallons, sitting exactly on a GMA pallet. Heights of 24, 30, 34, 42 and 48 inches on the same base cover most of the rest.

A four-wall 48 by 40 by 36 weighs about 18 pounds and a five-wall about 24 pounds. A tall five-wall 48 by 40 by 48 runs closer to 29 pounds. Those are our own scale figures rather than catalogue numbers.

An eight-sided bulk container, usually triple wall, with a separate base tray and telescoping cap. The rounded geometry stops free-flowing material bridging in corners, which is why the plastics industry uses them for pellets and powders.

Ply count and therefore stiffness. Four wall typically runs 90 to 120 lb/in edge crush and carries 1,200 to 1,800 lb; five wall runs 110 to 160 lb/in and carries 1,800 to 2,500 lb, stacks better and survives more reuse cycles.

One banded pallet, typically 20 to 25 flattened boxes. Most customers start there, check the stock against the grade description, then scale to truckloads.

Roughly $6.25 to $13.00 per box depending on size, wall, grade and quantity, before freight. That is typically 45 to 65 per cent below the same specification bought new.

No, and any used-box supplier who does is quoting from imagination. Stock turns over weekly. We publish honest price bands on the pricing page and quote firm numbers against what is actually on the floor.

Two to five business days across our fourteen-state core lanes, longer for LTL to the coasts. Collection from our dock is usually available the same week.

Yes. Every quote includes photographs of the actual lot, and larger orders can be inspected in person by appointment. We encourage yard visits.

Photograph them and tell us within 48 hours. If we graded wrong, we collect at our cost or credit the difference, your choice.

Yes. Mixed loads are banded and labelled separately so your floor cannot confuse them. Plenty of customers run 2A outbound and 3A internally on the same delivery.

Occasionally, into Canada and Mexico on specific lanes. Freight and customs usually dominate the economics, so we will tell you honestly whether it is worth doing.

Yes. Give us a date and a trailer type and we will have the load banded and ready. Bring straps.

Card or ACH on first orders, then terms on approved accounts once we have traded a few times.

1A is first use and as-new. 2A is light use, clean and square. 3A is structurally sound with cosmetic wear. 4A needs bench repair. 5A is an unsorted mixed load sold by the load rather than the unit. Our full ladder with reject criteria is published on the grades page.

No governing body and no enforced definition, which is exactly why one supplier's 2A can be another's 4A. We publish our standard in full and photograph every lot so you can check it.

In grades 1A to 3A, yes. Corrugated loses strength through moisture, crushing and repeated folding, not through age or scuffs. A dry two-trip five-wall box carries essentially its original rating.

Our placed stock averages 3.4 further trips. Well-handled five-wall boxes in dry storage regularly reach six or seven. Moisture and forklift contact are the limiting factors.

Moisture above about 12 per cent, any odour, chemical or food residue, delamination, through-punctures in a load-bearing face, and crushed bottom edges. Those go to the bench, the cutting table or the baler - never into stock.

1A through 3A carry essentially full rating. 4A is derated until reconditioned. 5A is unsorted so no single rating applies. Anything with visible edge crush is derated and marked regardless of grade.

The lowest grade that survives the job and satisfies whoever sees it. Internal material handling is a 3A problem. Buying 1A for it is the most common overspend in this market.

Yes, continuously. Dry, empty, uncontaminated boxes in almost any condition, including ones that need repair. Send counts and photographs and you will have a firm quote within a business day.

Between about $1.75 and $5.50 per box depending on size, wall, grade, quantity and distance from Kansas City. Clean five-wall 48 by 40 by 36 at truckload volume sits at the top of the range.

Flattening roughly triples what fits on a trailer, which materially changes freight cost and therefore what we can pay. If you cannot, say so and we will price it as-is rather than pretending the labour is free.

Three: one wide shot of the stack, one close on a corner, and one of a bottom edge. The bottom edge is the one people forget and the one that decides the price.

Usually within a week in the Kansas City metro and inside two on regional lanes. Full truckloads ready to load can often move faster.

Yes. Pallets on the same terms, bulk bags where the previous contents are documented, and baled OCC at market rates against the published index.

Anything wet, contaminated, hazardous, food-soiled or smelling of its previous contents. Wax-coated corrugated as well, because it contaminates the recycled furnish.

Practically, about a pallet - below that the freight costs more than the material is worth. If you are in the Kansas City metro we are more flexible, and we will tell you honestly when it is not worth moving.

Twenty-six floor positions assembled, up to fifty-two double stacked when the rating and the product allow. Flattened and banded, roughly 550 to 700 five-wall boxes.

Dock service around the Kansas City metro, regular truckload lanes across fourteen states, and LTL or truckload delivery anywhere in the continental United States.

Because used boxes are cheap and bulky. On a four hundred mile lane, poorly planned freight can cost more than the boxes. Flattening, banding and backhaul matching are what make reuse work at distance.

Yes. We run liftgate box trucks for ground-level sites and roll-off containers for staged accumulation. Tell us the constraints up front so the right equipment is booked first time.

Yes, and it is the cheapest way to work with us. Empties out and graded stock in on the same visit roughly halves the freight on both.

Substantially. Reuse skips collection, pulping, re-forming, drying and re-shipping entirely. Re-running an existing five-wall gaylord avoids about 23 lb of CO2e against manufacturing its replacement from virgin fibre; recycling recovers only a fraction of that.

They are cut down into pads, dividers and trays where the panels are sound, or baled as mill-spec OCC where they are not. Nothing arriving at Fiberglass Rd is landfilled - that has been written policy since 2019.

Yes. We issue a free quarterly diversion statement covering units reused, tons diverted, CO2e avoided and the factor set used. The full methodology is published so your auditor can check it rather than trust it.

Usually under reuse, diversion and Scope 3 procurement goals rather than recycled content, because no new board is made at all. Many frameworks score that more favourably. We will supply whichever data set your framework needs.

About 71 per cent leaves as reusable stock, 12 per cent is reconditioned first, 6 per cent is fabricated into parts and 11 per cent is baled for recycling. We publish those figures rather than round them up.

Because every quote depends on sizes, grades, counts, photographs and freight that have to be written down anyway. Writing them first is thirty seconds slower at the start and much faster afterwards, and nothing gets misheard on a noisy dock.

Monday to Friday 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM Central for dock, sales and dispatch. Saturday 8:00 AM to noon for scheduled pickups only. Closed Sunday, with weekend requests answered from 7:00 AM Monday.

Yes, by appointment. Walk the floor, look at graded stock, take samples away. Customers who visit once tend to buy on specification rather than on photographs ever after.

Yes, on the same published grading standard as everyone else. We will not describe a grade differently for a reseller than we would for the end user, which some find inconvenient and most find useful.