Caged IBC totes: specs and recycling

Two materials, two routes

The bottle is HDPE. The cage is steel. They are separated, graded and sent to different places. Under 49 CFR 178.702, code 31HA1 is a composite IBC with a plastic inner receptacle and a steel outer packaging.

Stacking

Caged poly totes of 275 to 330 gallons are acceptable for stacking four high when empty and two high when full, according to ibctanks.com. Container Exchanger says three high when empty. Follow your own site’s rule.

Where to start

Read the cage-and-bottle guide, then measure the heel.

The plate and the code

A caged tote carries a plate with its UN markings. Under 49 CFR 178.703, the markings include the UN symbol, the design code, the letter X, Y or Z for packing group, the month and year of manufacture, the country, the manufacturer, the stacking test load in kilograms and the maximum permissible gross mass in kilograms. A composite IBC also carries the month and year of its last leakproofness test and last inspection.

Those dates are the quickest way to tell whether a tote can go to reuse. A tote with a lapsed date needs a test first.

Where the cage and bottle part ways

At the end of its life the bottle is cut out of the cage. The cage goes one way and the bottle another. The cage is checked and either given a new bottle or sent for steel. The bottle is graded by its last contents and either reconditioned or ground into regrind.

The cage-and-bottle guide explains the choice and the grade table gives the names.

Not for flammables

Ibctanks.com says plastic and composite IBCs should never be used for Class I flammable liquids, and that listed rigid nonmetallic IBCs suit onsite storage of Class II and III combustibles only. A caged tote that held a flammable is a fire consideration as well as a waste one.