From One Truck to the Twin Cities' Largest IBC Tote Operation

We partner with two Minneapolis public middle schools to run a hands-on STEM module focused on materials science, recycling economics, and the circular economy. Twice a year, classes visit our Broadway facility for a full tour where students learn about HDPE plastic properties, industrial cleaning chemistry, and how logistics routing is a real-world math problem. Students work through a simulated business case where they calculate the environmental and financial impact of reusing 1,000 IBC totes versus manufacturing new ones. We've hosted over 300 students since the program launched. Several have gone on to participate in citywide science fairs with recycling-focused projects inspired by what they learned at our facility.

We donate food-grade IBC totes to local Minneapolis schools for use as large-scale composting bins and rainwater collection systems. The totes are modified by our team with drainage holes, overflow valves, and screen lids to function as either compost digesters or garden irrigation reservoirs. To date, we've supplied totes to eight Minneapolis public schools, each of which now runs its own composting program for cafeteria food waste. The Sheridan Arts Magnet School alone has diverted an estimated 2,400 pounds of food waste from the landfill in its first year using our donated totes. We provide the containers, deliver them for free, and our sustainability officer Amara visits each school annually to check on the systems and talk to students about waste reduction.

We're an annual partner with Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity, supplying repurposed IBC totes for use on construction sites as water storage, material mixing stations, and temporary containment for construction fluids. Our steel cage frames -- separated from totes that can't be resold -- are donated as construction material for shelving, fencing, and garden trellises at Habitat homes. Each year, our team also volunteers a full Saturday on a Habitat build site in the Minneapolis metro area. In 2024, we provided materials and volunteer hours for two homes in the Phillips neighborhood. The repurposed cage steel saved Habitat an estimated $1,200 in fencing materials across both properties.

Every April, our entire team participates in an Earth Day cleanup of the Northeast Minneapolis industrial corridor -- the stretch of Broadway, Central, and University Avenues where our facility is located. We organize a half-day cleanup event that's open to the public, provide supplies (gloves, bags, safety vests), and use our trucks to haul collected waste to proper disposal sites. In 2024, our Earth Day event drew 45 volunteers from the neighborhood and collected over 3,200 pounds of litter, scrap metal, and illegally dumped industrial waste from the area around the Mississippi riverfront. We also use the event to educate neighbors about proper IBC tote disposal -- because improperly dumped totes are a persistent problem in industrial zones, and we want people to know they can call us for free pickup instead.

We partner with Second Harvest Heartland, the largest food bank in the Upper Midwest, to provide food-grade IBC totes for bulk liquid storage and transport. Food banks receive large donations of cooking oils, syrups, juices, and other liquids that need proper containment -- but buying new food-grade totes is a significant expense for a nonprofit. We donate reconditioned Grade A food-contact totes to Second Harvest on an ongoing basis. In 2024, we provided 35 totes that enabled the food bank to accept and distribute over 9,000 gallons of donated cooking oil that would otherwise have been turned away due to lack of proper containers. We also deliver and pick up the totes at no cost, and our quality inspector James personally certifies each donated tote for food-contact use.