Gaylord boxes in New Castle County, Delaware

New Castle County is Delaware's northern county and its only urban one. Wilmington, the largest city, is a port and a corporate home for chemical companies. South along the river lie New Castle and Delaware City, where a refinery and chemical plants stand. West of the city, Newark is a university town with labs, food makers and distribution.

The county is a hinge between the Delaware Valley and the Chesapeake region, reached from Philadelphia by Interstate 95 and from New Jersey by the Delaware Memorial Bridge. That position makes it a natural destination for boxes surplus on either bank.

The Port of Wilmington is North America's largest seaport for bananas, handling nearly 1.5 million tons of bananas and plantains in 2018 (Supply Chain Dive). PBF Energy's Delaware City refinery lists 180,000 barrels per day of total nameplate capacity (Wikipedia). Croda's Atlas Point plant near New Castle makes surfactants and ethylene glycol on a site in industrial use since 1937 (DNREC).

These are cited for geography. We name no operator as a customer and state no prices.

This page covers 19801, 19802, 19804, 19805, 19720, 19706, 19703, 19702, 19711, 19713, 19709 and 19701. The industries to expect there, from our market research: petroleum refining, specialty chemicals, port and cold storage, food import and pharmaceutical.

Fruit ships arrive in seasonal waves. Chemical and refinery work follows turnaround calendars. The university brings academic-year waves of lab packaging.

• Buy. Plants, distributors and importers needing used multi-trip boxes.
• Sell. Fruit handlers, labs and warehouses with clean single-trip empties.
• Recycle. Stacks too damp or damaged to resell.

If your boxes came from a fruit room, a lab or a plant, say which; the grade depends on it.

• First State. Delaware's nickname, for being the first to ratify the Constitution.
• Importer. A company that brings goods into the country, such as the fruit handlers at the Wilmington port.
• Surfactant. A compound that lowers surface tension in liquids, used in soaps, paints and foods and made at Atlas Point.

• The town and ZIP.
• What the boxes carried and where they were stored.
• The count, footprint and grade.
• Whether a truck can reach the dock.