Written by L. Park, Sustainability
There is a quiet financial transfer happening at the back of most loading docks in America: the building owner pays a waste hauler to take away corrugated, the waste hauler bales it and sells it to a paper mill, and the building owner never sees a dollar of the bale revenue. Sometimes the math works out for the building owner anyway, because the alternative is a landfill tip fee. But often it does not — and the building owner does not realize they are leaving money on the table.
The hidden value of empty corrugated.
A standard 40x48 doublewall gaylord, even at the bottom of the OCC market, is worth roughly $1.20 in raw bale value. A grade-A reclaimed one is worth $7-$11 to a buyer like us. Most generators of empty corrugated are giving these boxes away to a hauler whose entire business model is monetizing the difference.
When the dumpster is the right call.
Tiny volumes (under a few skids per month) are not worth the freight to a recycler. Mixed contaminated loads where the value is dominated by tip fee avoidance are also a wash. And in some markets the local waste hauler offers above-market bale rebates, which closes the gap.
The questions to ask your waste hauler.
- Do you bale the corrugated I generate, or does it go to landfill?
- If you bale it, do I get a rebate when OCC prices are high?
- Can I see a monthly tonnage report?
- Could I get more value by routing that volume to a reuse-first broker instead?
The bottom line.
For most operations generating more than a few pallets of empty corrugated per week, switching from a dumpster relationship to a buy-back relationship turns a cost line into a small revenue line. The break-even is lower than people expect.