Buying totes by the trailer

01How a load is counted

Totes stack. Many can ride two high in transit, which doubles the payload for a trailer’s floor. How many fit depends on the height and on what the plate allows, and this site states no stacking load: that figure is on each tote’s UN plate, in kilograms. A plate that does not allow stacking when full changes the count.

One source puts a 53 foot truck at 28 to 56 medium-capacity totes of 250 to 350 gallons, which is 7,000 to 19,600 gallons. The same source puts 56 to 84 small-height totes of 110 to 250 gallons on a trailer. The arithmetic is straightforward: 28 totes of 250 gallons is 7,000, and 56 totes of 350 gallons is 19,600.

02Counting the 275 and the 330

Both sizes take the same floor, so the floor count is the same and the difference is the second layer. A 330 is seven inches taller, which matters in a trailer with a height limit.

03What a truckload ticket should say

• The size and grade: one grade per load is easiest to match.
• The count wanted, and whether a part load is acceptable.
• The delivery ZIP and whether there is a dock or a lift.
• The retest date range you will accept.
• The use: chemical refill, food product or water.

The desk matches a full or part trailer against sellers who have posted a pad of the same grade. Where a pad is bigger than a trailer, the ticket can split it.

04Where truckloads come from here

Pad-sized lots come from refinery and chemical sites on the Delaware and from food distribution parks like Pureland in Logan Township, which is reached by I-295, the Commodore Barry Bridge and the New Jersey Turnpike. The area pages say what each district sends out.

05What fits on a trailer

A standard 53 foot trailer can carry up to 60 totes in the most favourable case, 25,200 gallons by volume, but the usual range is smaller. Medium totes of 250 to 350 gallons run 28 to 56 to the trailer, 7,000 to 19,600 gallons in all. Smaller, shorter totes of 110 to 250 gallons run 56 to 84, and large totes of 450 to 550 gallons run only 30.

Stacking decides the count. Empty caged totes in the 275 to 330 gallon range are acceptable stacked four high, but only two high when filled to maximum cargo weight, and the plate states the stacking test load. For a buyer of empties, that means a trailer of 275s stacked empty can carry far more than a trailer of full ones, and a truckload ticket should say whether the totes ride empty.

A truckload is also a promise about a loading dock. A pad with a forklift and a clear apron can load a trailer in an hour, while a pad without one needs a lift gate truck and several hours. The desk asks which, because the buyer is paying for the driver’s time.

06Post the ticket

+More in Buy

• Totes per truckHow 275 and 330 gallon totes load on a 53-foot trailer, single and double stacked, and how loads are counted on a ticket.
• Used totesUsed 275 and 330 gallon IBC totes from Delaware Valley plants, by grade and last contents, for buyers in PA, NJ and DE. Post a buy ticket.
• Dimensions and weightsFootprint, height, capacity and empty and full weights for 275 and 330 gallon totes, with gallons, liters, pounds and kilograms checked.
• AreasWhere Philly IBC Totes trades: Philadelphia, its Pennsylvania counties, South Jersey and northern Delaware, county by county and district by district.
• Food-grade historyWhat a food-grade history is, the paperwork that proves it, and how to ask for totes that only ever held food-safe contents.
• Chemical refillsRebottled and reconditioned totes with current retest dates for blenders and distributors refilling chemicals in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.
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