A pristine tote you wanted to throw away
Tell the lab the container is near mint and you want it gone, and it refuses to recommend disposal. We would rather buy it from you — and pay top band for it.
★ The Loop Lab
Ask what your tote should become
Three questions, one honest verdict, and the environmental arithmetic to back it up. The same logic our graders use, running in your browser.
- Sheet
- 97
- Revision
- 2026-10
- Scale
- 1:1
- Drawn at
- Peoria IL
3Questions
4Possible paths
9Render outcomes
0Data sent anywhere
The Loop Lab — our signature toolThree questions.
Three questions.
One honest verdict.
Tell the lab what your container last held, what shape it is in and what you want out of it. It returns the grade it will actually earn, the lowest-impact next life available to it, and the real environmental arithmetic of that choice — calculated in your browser, sent nowhere.
Grade B
Reuse as-is
The best outcome there is. Wash it, inspect it, re-release it. No new material, no grinder, no emissions beyond a wash cycle.
Carbon ledger — 24 containers
5.1klb CO₂e avoided
3.2klb HDPE kept in use
1.1kgal fresh water saved
1.5kkWh embodied energy
- Top band pricing. This is the tote everybody wants and we will quote it the same day.
Figures are per-container averages for a 275-gallon composite IBC, drawn from our own 2025 yard data and published in the annual impact report. Paste the ticket code into the form and the grader will know exactly what you are describing.
Seventeen years of yard judgement, written down
The Loop Lab is not a quiz widget. It is the decision tree our graders have run in their heads since 2012, made explicit so you can run it yourself before you call anybody.
01
Contents decide the ceiling
Last contents set the highest grade a container can ever reach. Solvent exposure caps it permanently; an undocumented history caps it at B.
02
Condition decides the path
A sound bottle goes back into service. A spent one gets rebottled. A failed cage gets baled. Condition is a fact, not a negotiation.
03
Your goal decides the service
The same container can be cash, inventory, a rain harvester or regrind. The lab picks the highest rung that satisfies what you actually want.
04
The ledger keeps us honest
Every outcome shows its own environmental arithmetic, so a lower rung always looks worse — because it is.
The ticket code
Every verdict generates a short code. Paste it into the contact form and the grader reading your request knows exactly which container you are describing before they reply.
Four verdicts people are surprised by
A cracked bottle is not a dead tote
A split or crazed bottle sounds terminal and is not. The cage, pallet and hardware are 60% of the container by weight and they are usually fine. That is a rebottle, not a replacement.
Clean solvent totes still never go back
HDPE absorbs aromatics into the wall. A solvent container can look spotless and still be permanently unsuitable for product service. The lab says so instead of selling you a wash.
An unlabelled tote loses a grade
No documentation caps the grade at B regardless of appearance. We cannot sell a history we cannot prove, and nobody serious will buy one.
The second instrument on the bench
Where the ledger numbers come from
| Path | CO₂e avoided | HDPE kept in use | Fresh water saved | Embodied energy | Why that figure |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reuse as-is | 212 lb | 134 lb | 46 gal | 61 kWh | Full embodied cost of a new container, less our wash and handling |
| Rebottle | 162 lb | 134 lb | 38 gal | 44 kWh | Cage and pallet reused (60% of mass); new bottle at full cost |
| Repurpose | 212 lb | 134 lb | 12 gal | 61 kWh | Container not replaced; minimal washing involved |
| Recycle | 95 lb | 134 lb | 0 gal | 28 kWh | Credit for displaced virgin HDPE, less granulation energy |
- Nothing in the lab is sent anywhere. It runs entirely in the page, which is why there is no 'enter your email to see results'.
- The lab deliberately does not quote prices. Bands move with resin and season, and a stale number would make the whole tool untrustworthy.
- It predicts the grade a container will earn. A grader still earns it, with eighteen checks under good light.
- It will not make regulatory determinations. Whether a residue is RCRA-regulated is not a question a decision tree should answer.
The logic, written out in plain English
- Last contents set the ceiling. Solvent or fuel exposure caps a container at Grade C permanently, because aromatics absorb into the polyethylene wall and no wash cycle recovers that.
- An undocumented history caps the grade at B regardless of condition. We cannot sell a history we cannot prove and nobody serious will buy one.
- Food history plus near-mint condition is the only route to Grade A food grade, and even then it needs four documents behind it.
- A spent bottle with a sound cage is a rebottle, not a replacement. That is 60% of the container's mass reused.
- A cage with no bottle is not scrap. It is a stackable, forkliftable steel frame, and it becomes a locker, a rack insert or a firewood store.
- If you ask us to dispose of a near-mint container, the lab refuses and offers to buy it instead.
- Every path shows its own environmental arithmetic, so a lower rung always looks worse — because it is.
Is this just a lead capture form in disguise?
No. It sends nothing, it stores nothing, and two of its verdicts end in 'keep using what you have' or 'this is not ours to handle'. A tool that always ends in contact-us is a form with extra steps.
What is the ticket code for?
It encodes your three answers. Paste it into the contact form and the grader reading the request knows exactly which container you are describing before they reply, which removes a round of email.
How accurate is the grade prediction?
Good enough to make a decision on, and not a guarantee. Across 2024, grades predicted from photographs matched the on-arrival grade in roughly 96% of cases, and the warranty covers the rest.
Why does it sometimes recommend something I did not ask for?
Because the honest answer and the requested answer are not always the same. If your container is too good to scrap we say so, and if a wash cannot fix your problem we say that too.
One more thing
Read the manifesto →The lab will talk you out of a sale
If the honest answer is “keep using it” or “this is not ours to handle”, the lab says that. We decided early that a tool which always ends in “contact us” is not a tool, it is a form with extra steps.