Services · S-03
Rebottling.
Cage in, tote out.
Short answer
- Roughly one third the cost of buying new containers
- 44 kg of galvanised steel per unit stays out of a furnace
- Fresh five-year UN window where the assembly qualifies
- Spent bottles become regrind — tonnage certified on request
Quote rebottling
Cage triage
What we can and cannot rebottle
Send photographs of two things: an upright-to-rail weld joint, and the base fixing points. Those two images tell us almost everything.
| Cage condition | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Bowed uprights, sound welds | Rebottle | Presses straight on the jig without touching the weld |
| Surface rust at weld scars | Rebottle | Cosmetic. Shot-blasting removes it and the zinc around it still protects |
| Scuffed or crazed bottle, intact cage | Rebottle — ideal | This is exactly the unit the service exists for |
| Cracked weld at a joint | Reject to recycling | No cosmetic or mechanical fix. Pressing conceals the crack |
| Kinked upright (sharp fold) | Reject to recycling | Fold has already fractured the grain structure |
| Torn base fixing holes | Reject to recycling | Nothing left to fasten the base to |
| Flaking, blistered galvanising over a full rail | Case by case | Years outdoors. May rebottle for indoor service only |
| Permeated bottle, sound cage | Rebottle — ideal | The new bottle resolves the permeation entirely |
The line
Five stations
- 01
Strip and granulate
Spent bottle drained, cut out and granulated. Regrind sorted by colour and melt index and sold into the material stream rather than landfilled.
- 02
Shot-blast and press
Cage blasted to clean metal, uprights pressed straight on a jig, every weld dye-checked. Rejected cages are sheared and baled to mill spec the same day.
- 03
Seat the new bottle
New virgin bottle lowered, strapped and seated. Resin selected by application — food resin certificates retained against the serial.
- 04
New wetted parts
New gasket in your specified compound, new valve, new lid. Every surface your product touches is new even though the container is not.
- 05
Test, mark, record
Leakproofness test at 3 psi, then UN re-marking under our reconditioner code where the assembly qualifies, with a fresh test date on a new plate.
Short answer
- Rebottling your cage: typically $135 – $210 per unit
- Buying a rebottled unit outright: $210 – $365
- Buying new: $390 – $540
- Scrapping the cage and buying new: the worst of all three
Questions
Rebottling questions
Can you rebottle totes I send you?
Yes, and it is one of the better deals in this industry. You keep the steel you already paid for, we fit a new bottle, and you get a container that is functionally new for roughly a third of new-tote money. Lead time is 7 – 12 business days.
What makes a cage worth rebottling?
Sound welds, uprights that are bowed rather than kinked, intact base fixings and galvanising that is not flaking in sheets. Bowed presses straight. A cracked weld at an upright-to-rail joint is terminal — pressing it hides the crack rather than fixing it.
Do I get the same bottle resin as new?
Yes. Virgin HDPE from the same mould families the original manufacturers use. Food orders get FDA 21 CFR 177.1520 resin with the certificate retained against the serial number.
What happens to my old bottles?
Drained, cut, granulated and sold as regrind sorted by colour and melt index. About 52 kg of HDPE per 275-gallon unit goes back into the material stream. You can have the tonnage on a diversion certificate.
Is a rebottled tote legal for hazmat?
Where the assembly qualifies, we re-mark it under our own reconditioner registration code with a fresh test date — giving you a full five-year service window rather than the remainder of someone else's. The marking string, test date and our code go on a new plate.
Economics
When rebottling beats the alternatives
Rebottling is not always the right answer. These are the four scenarios people actually face, with the arithmetic.
| Scenario | Rebottle | Buy reconditioned | Buy new | Best choice |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| You own the cage, bottle is crazed | $135 – $210 | $120 – $225 + scrap your cage | $390 – $540 | Rebottle |
| You own the cage, spec needs a new bottle | $135 – $210 | Not possible | $390 – $540 | Rebottle |
| You own nothing, spec needs a new bottle | $210 – $365 (we supply the cage) | Not possible | $390 – $540 | Buy rebottled |
| You own nothing, industrial duty | $210 – $365 | $120 – $225 | $390 – $540 | Buy reconditioned |
| Cage has a cracked weld | Not possible | $120 – $225 | $390 – $540 | Buy reconditioned |
Row four is the one we point out most often. If you have no existing cage and the application is ordinary industrial duty, reconditioned is cheaper and lower-footprint than rebottled. Rebottling earns its premium when the specification needs a virgin bottle or when you already own the steel.
Acceptance rates
What share of a cage pile is usually rebottlable
From the last two years of toll-rebottling intake, so you can estimate before you ship.
| Source | Accepted | Rejected to baler | Main reason for rejection |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indoor-stored fleet, bottles aged out | 91% | 9% | Weld cracks from handling |
| Outdoor-stored, 1 – 3 years | 84% | 16% | Galvanising failure over a rail |
| Outdoor-stored, 4+ years | 63% | 37% | Through-wall pitting |
| Mixed decommissioning pile | 71% | 29% | Kinked uprights, torn base fixings |
| Crushed-bottle units (impact damage) | 81% | 19% | Kinked rather than bowed uprights |
Short answer
- Indoor-stored cages accept at over 90%
- Four years outdoors roughly doubles the rejection rate
- We report accepted, rejected and borderline before work starts
- Rejected cages are baled and credited by weight, not binned
From the Yard Journal
Longer pieces from the people who run the wash line, the test bay and the trading desk.
6 December 2022 · 6 min
Reading a cage weld: a field guide to the joint that kills totes
The upright-to-rail joint decides whether a cage is rebottled or baled. Here is what we look at, in what order, and why a bowed upright is fine but a kinked one is not.
Priya Raghunathan · Head of reconditioning
Read21 May 2026 · 4 min
What a crushed cage tells you about the bottle inside
Counterintuitively, the worse the cage looks, the better the odds on the bottle. We pulled three years of intake records to check.
Priya Raghunathan · Head of reconditioning
Read2 September 2022 · 6 min
Why your tote still smells after we washed it
Permeation is not a cleaning failure. It is a material property of HDPE, and understanding it explains most of the grading rules in this industry.
Priya Raghunathan · Head of reconditioning
Read
Next move
Photograph one weld joint and one base fixing.
Attach them to a request with your unit count and we will tell you how many of your cages are rebottling candidates — usually within a day, and usually it is more than you expect.