Gaylord recycling
When a gaylord is wet, torn, crushed or missing its bottom, it is recycled as OCC, old corrugated, and we say so plainly instead of pretending it can be resold.
The end of a box is a bale
Most gaylords are corrugated fiberboard, and corrugated has one of the best recycling records of any packaging. The EPA reports a corrugated box recycling rate of 96.5 percent in 2018. A box that cannot go back into use goes to the baler, gets crushed into a wire-tied cube of flattened OCC and becomes new paper.
So recycling is not a failure. It is the right place for a box that has done its job. The only mistake is sending a good box there by accident, or holding a ruined one on the dock as if it were an asset.
How we tell the difference
| What you see | Where it goes |
|---|---|
| Dry, flaps and bottom intact | Back into use |
| Clean creases, no soft board | Back into use, at a lower grade |
| Soft, stained, wavy board | Recycle |
| Torn walls or crushed corners | Recycle |
| Missing or torn bottom | Recycle |
| Stacked under load in damp air | Often recycle |
Moisture decides most of these. Corrugated loses about half its compression strength when relative humidity rises from 50 to 90 percent, and stacking strength often falls to about 50 percent of its potential above 85 percent.
What you need to do
- Pull liners, strapping and plastic. Only paper goes into a bale.
- Keep the pile dry and apart from sellable boxes.
- Flatten boxes if you can; see folding flat.
- Describe the pile on the form: count, condition, where it sits.
Pickup explains what to have ready, what goes to the baler sorts a stack, and OCC and bale prices explains the fiber market without quoting numbers we cannot back up.
Why recycling with us instead of alone
A reusable gaylord is worth more than its fiber. If you ship the whole pile to a baler you may be baling boxes that someone would have used. If you keep the whole pile you may be storing ruined ones. A single request to us sorts the pile into the part that goes back in and the part that goes to the bale.
We serve Philadelphia and its Pennsylvania counties, South Jersey and northern Delaware. We do not state prices, minimums or timing on this site. Ask on the form and we answer by email.
Recycling does not end at your dock
- The OCC leaves in a baled cube or loose in a truck.
- It travels to a mill or a processor that grades and bales it further.
- The mill pulps it, screens out contaminants and makes linerboard or fluting.
- Converters turn that into sheets, then boxes, then gaylords.
- The box goes out to a customer and the cycle repeats.
Contamination breaks that chain. Plastic, strapping, food and wet board all cost the mill money, and the cost comes back to your bale.
What a baler does to a gaylord
A vertical baler, the machine you see in warehouse back rooms, has a steel ram that squeezes flattened cardboard into a block. A horizontal baler feeds from a hopper and ejects a long block. Either way, the machine is built for paper, and it fails or jams on metal, rope, strapping and plastic.
Gaylords are large and tall. They go in flat, with flaps open and strapping cut. A set-up gaylord crushed whole holds a lot of air; a flat one holds none. That is why we ask whether your boxes are flat.
When the block comes out it is tied with wire, weighed on a scale and loaded for the mill. The mill pulps it and makes new linerboard or fluting medium. A box that has lived in a Delaware Valley dock may come back as a box that lives in one.
What the baler wants and what it does not
| Board | Where it goes | What helps |
|---|---|---|
| Clean, dry, flattened corrugated | The baler, as old corrugated containers | Flat, banded, free of plastic and tape clumps |
| Wet or mouldy board | Lower grade or waste | Keep it apart from dry stacks |
| Food-stained board | Often refused | Say so in the request |
| Boxes that held anything hazardous | Not taken by us | Tell us what was inside |
The more precise your description, the sooner we can say yes or no.
Questions people ask
When should a gaylord be recycled instead of resold?
When it is wet, torn, crushed or missing a bottom. Those are structural failures.
Are gaylord boxes recyclable?
Fiberboard ones are, as OCC. Plastic corrugated ones need a plastics recycler.
Do I have to flatten them?
It helps. Flat boxes take less truck.
Sources
- EPA: paper and paperboard, material-specific data, last reviewed November 11, 2026
- AICC: corrugated and cold or humid storage, last reviewed November 11, 2026
- Corrugated and humidity, Paper Index academy, last reviewed November 11, 2026
Ask about recycling
Tell us what has gone wet or torn and how much of it there is. We reply by email.
Prefer email? Write to info@phillygaylords.com.