I price between forty and sixty quotes a week, and about once a month someone tells me that used tote prices should have moved because resin moved. It is a reasonable assumption and it is mostly wrong. Here is what actually drives the number.
Driver one: freight, and it is not close
On a landed price for a reconditioned 275-gallon unit, freight is routinely 20% to 45% of what the customer pays, and on small orders it can exceed the container itself.
| Order | Freight per unit | Share of landed price |
|---|---|---|
| 1 unit, 500 mi, lift-gate | $95 – $140 | 36% – 45% |
| 4 units, 500 mi, dock | $55 – $95 | 24% – 36% |
| 8 units, 500 mi, dock | $34 – $52 | 17% – 23% |
| 42 units, 500 mi, full trailer | $14 – $22 | 8% – 11% |
| Collected from our yard | $0 | 0% |
Freight share of a landed reconditioned 275, at $170 ex-yard
That spread is larger than the entire gap between rinsed and reconditioned grade. It means a customer agonising over grade while ordering four units at a time is optimising the wrong variable, and it is the single most common mistake I see.
Freight also moves on its own schedule, driven by diesel, driver availability and seasonal capacity. In practice a 15% move in freight rates changes my landed quotes more than a 30% move in resin ever has.
Driver two: the supply of empties
Used containers are not manufactured to meet demand. They appear when somebody finishes a fill. That makes supply a function of other industries' production schedules, which have nothing to do with container demand.
Agricultural chemical empties surge in late summer after the application season. Food-grade empties surge in late autumn after preserving and beverage runs. Industrial empties are steadier but follow plant maintenance shutdowns. None of these schedules care what resin costs.
This produces a market where supply and demand peak at different times for structural reasons, and the gap between them is what we spend our working capital smoothing.
The counterintuitive bit: resin spikes can lower used prices
When virgin HDPE runs up, the intuitive prediction is that used containers become more attractive and therefore more expensive. In practice the first effect runs the other way, and it runs faster.
A resin spike raises the scrap value of a container. Holders of empties — the plants sitting on forty units behind a building — notice that the scrap bid went up, and more of them decide this is the quarter to clear the yard. Supply offered to us increases within weeks.
Demand for reconditioned units does increase too, but buying decisions in this trade run on quarterly budget cycles, so that side takes months to show up. The result is a short window where our intake rises before our outbound does, and prices soften.
| Weeks after | What happens | Effect on used prices |
|---|---|---|
| 0 – 3 | Scrap bids rise; holders notice | None yet |
| 3 – 8 | Intake offers to us increase | Soften 3% – 8% |
| 8 – 16 | New-container quotes rise at fillers | Stabilise |
| 16 – 30 | Buyers shift budget toward reclaimed | Firm, sometimes above the starting point |
Typical sequence after a sharp resin increase
Resin sets the floor under a container. It does not set the ceiling, because the ceiling is set by what a new container costs plus how badly you need one this week.
Driver three: grade scarcity
This moves prices more violently than any commodity index, because grade supply is genuinely lumpy. Documented food-grade stock depends on getting prior-contents affidavits out of fillers, and some months that simply does not happen at volume.
- Food grade tightens every August as beverage season drains the pool. Prices move 15% – 25% within a grade.
- Agricultural-compatible reconditioned tightens February through April ahead of the growing season.
- As-is and rinsed are nearly always available and barely move. Price competition here is pure freight.
- Stainless has no market rhythm at all — stock appears when a plant decommissions, and then it is gone.
Where resin genuinely does matter
Two places, and they are both at the ends of the range rather than the middle.
At the bottom, scrap units are priced directly against prevailing regrind and mill markets, which is why we quote those on the day rather than from a sheet. A scrap bid that is a fortnight old is not a bid, it is a guess.
At the top, rebottling consumes 52 kg of virgin resin per unit, so a resin run-up moves rebottled pricing in a way it does not move reconditioned pricing. In 2021 we watched the rebottled band move 14% while the reconditioned band did not move at all, and the reason was entirely upstream.
What this looks like over a year
If you want a mental model, think of the price of a reconditioned 275-gallon unit as four components that each move independently.
| Component | Share | What moves it | Annual volatility |
|---|---|---|---|
| The container | ~55% | Grade scarcity, intake supply | ±12% |
| Freight | ~22% | Diesel, capacity, order size | ±25% |
| Our processing | ~15% | Energy, chemistry, labour | ±8% |
| Margin | ~8% | Competitive pressure | ±5% |
Rough decomposition of a landed price, 10 units, 500-mile lane
Resin touches the first component indirectly and the third barely at all. That is why the correlation people expect does not show up in the data.
What to do with this
If you are planning purchasing, stop watching polymer indices and start watching two things you can actually act on: your order size and your season.
- Consolidate orders. Going from four units to forty-two cuts freight per unit by roughly two thirds, which beats any discount you will negotiate.
- Buy seasonal grades off-season. Food grade is cheapest in late winter; agricultural grades in autumn.
- Be honest about grade. Over-specifying costs more than every market movement combined.
- Send a postal code with the enquiry. Without one, any price you are quoted is a guess with freight missing.
Our published bands and the four variables behind them are on what used totes cost.
Written by
Nina Caldwell
Trading desk
Prices grades and landed freight. Measured on used-first sourcing and repeat business, not on margin per unit.