Read the code on the cage
Six fields, stamped on a plate most people never look at, that between them decide everything your container is legally allowed to carry.
- Sheet
- 42
- Revision
- 2026-10
- Scale
- 1:1
- Drawn at
- Peoria IL
- Container type31Rigid IBC for liquids
- MaterialHAPlastics inner receptacle with a steel outer casing
- Outer casing1Rigid outer casing — the steel cage you can see.
- Packing groupYThe common rating on composite IBCs. Medium and low danger goods.
- Made0126Month 1, year 2026. US practice calls for leak-tightness testing every 2.5 years and a full re-test every 5 years from this date.
- Authorising countryUSAThe state that approved the design type. USA, D (Germany), NL, CA and GB are the ones we see most.
- Maker / design codeM5678Manufacturer and design-type identifier assigned by the authorising state.
- ✓Approved for liquids.
- ✓Composite construction: HDPE bottle inside a steel cage — the classic tote.
- ✓Rated for packing groups ii and iii.
- ✓Inside the usual 5-year re-test window (through 2031) if the records exist.
- ✓Code parses cleanly — this container can be documented and resold for regulated service.
Educational tool, not a certification. The authoritative source for any container is its plate, its test report and your own regulatory counsel — we decode, we do not approve.
The plate decides what the container is allowed to do
A tote with an unreadable UN marking is not a cheaper tote. It is a container that has permanently lost access to every regulated application, and no amount of cleaning brings that back.
- Buying: confirm the design type matches your product before money changes hands.
- Selling: a legible plate is worth 30–60% more than an identical container without one.
- Compliance: the code plus the re-test record is what an inspector asks for.
- Maintenance: photograph the plate at intake and store the image against the serial. It takes four seconds and saves entire arguments.
The one rule
Never paint, wrap over, grind or close-range pressure-wash a cage plate. There is no re-certification path for an anonymous container.
The reference tables behind the decoder
Finding the marking on your own container
| Container type | Where the marking is | What it looks like | Common problem |
|---|---|---|---|
| Composite IBC (caged) | Stamped plate on a cage upright, usually front-left | Metal plate, riveted or welded | Painted over or pressure-washed off |
| All-plastic rigid IBC | Moulded into the bottle shoulder | Raised lettering | Worn flat by abrasion |
| Steel IBC | Stamped on the shell or a welded data plate | Engraved metal | Painted during refurbishment |
| Bulk bag (FIBC) | Sewn-in label on a panel | Printed fabric tag | Torn off or faded by UV |
| Poly drum | Embossed on the base or shoulder | Raised moulding | Scuffed from dragging |
- Photograph the plate straight on, in daylight, filling the frame. A plate photographed at an angle is the most common reason we cannot read a code from a customer's image.
- Clean it with a damp cloth, never a wire brush and never a pressure washer at close range.
- If the plate is damaged, photograph it anyway — a partial code still tells us the design type and the packing group most of the time.
- Record the code against your own asset number at intake. Four seconds, and it is the cheapest compliance habit in this industry.
Four limits, stated plainly
- Whether the container is food grade. The marking is a transport certification; food contact needs resin certification, contents history, validated cleaning and a lab result.
- What was last inside it. That is a declaration, and it is a separate document that travels with the container.
- Whether it has been re-tested. Leak-tightness every 2.5 years and a full re-test every 5 under US practice, and those records live separately from the plate.
- Whether the container is in sound condition. A perfect code on a crazed bottle is common, and the bottle decides the grade.
The decoder says my code does not parse. Now what?
Check the transcription first — 0 against O and 1 against I account for most of it. If the plate genuinely is damaged, the container is out of regulated service permanently, but it is still perfectly good for water, nutrient, glycol and most general industrial duty.
Can I use this as evidence of compliance?
No. It is an educational tool. The authoritative sources are the plate itself, the design type test report and your own regulatory counsel. We decode; we do not approve.
Why does packing group Y appear on nearly everything?
Because Y — packing groups II and III — covers the overwhelming majority of what composite IBCs are used for. X-rated containers exist and are less common; Z-rated ones are restricted to low-danger goods only.
My code has extra fields after the maker code.
Some plates carry the stacking load and maximum gross mass in the same block, and some manufacturers add a serial. The decoder reads the first six fields and will tell you it ignored the rest rather than guessing.