This post is against our commercial interest in the short term and we are publishing it anyway, because a customer who buys well comes back and a customer who feels squeezed does not. The used container market in this region has a pronounced season, and almost nobody outside the trade knows about it.
The shape of the year
Here is our own average selling price for a washed Grade B 275-gallon container, by month, averaged across 2020 to 2023 and indexed so January equals 100.
| Month | Index | Yard stock | What is happening |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 100 | High | Stock built through autumn clearances |
| February | 104 | High | Agricultural buyers begin |
| March | 111 | Falling | Spray season ordering starts in earnest |
| April | 114 | Low | Peak agricultural demand |
| May | 112 | Low | Demand continues, stock thin |
| June | 106 | Low | Construction and municipal take over |
| July | 103 | Rising | Summer lull, first clearances |
| August | 102 | Rising | Steady |
| September | 99 | Rising | Harvest empties and site clearances begin |
| October | 97 | High | Peak clearance season |
| November | 98 | High | Winter prep buying offsets clearances |
| December | 99 | High | Quiet, stock at maximum |
Why it happens
Two independent cycles that happen to be out of phase.
The demand cycle is agricultural
Lancaster, Berks and Chester counties buy containers for nutrient storage, fertigation and spray mixing, and they buy them in the six weeks before the season starts. That demand is inelastic — a grower who needs eight totes in April needs them in April — and it arrives in a concentrated block against a fixed regional supply.
The supply cycle is industrial and it peaks in autumn
Chemical distributors clear accumulated packaging before year end. Construction sites demobilise in September and October. Food processors finish seasonal contracts. Plant closures, for whatever accounting reason, cluster in the fourth quarter. So yards fill in autumn and empty in spring, which is exactly the wrong phase for a buyer who orders when they need containers rather than when they are cheap.
What this means if you are selling to us
The mirror image. Our buy-back rates are strongest in February through May, when we are short of stock and agricultural demand is bidding, and weakest in October when every clearance in the region arrives at once.
If you are sitting on forty empties in September and they are stored under cover, holding them until February is worth roughly $12 to $18 a container. If they are sitting uncovered in a yard, it is not — a container that takes on three inches of rainwater and freezes will drop a full grade, which costs more than the seasonal gain.
The exceptions
- Food-grade stock does not follow this pattern. Its supply is driven by food manufacturing contracts rather than the calendar, and it is scarce in every month. There is no good time to wait for food-grade inventory.
- Grade C follows it weakly. Construction and stormwater demand is summer-weighted, so Grade C peaks in June rather than April.
- Stainless is a different market entirely, driven by plant reconfigurations. When a flavour house or a dairy retools, a fleet appears, and that is the month to buy regardless of the season.
- New containers track resin and steel, not the agricultural calendar, and have their own unrelated volatility.
Why publish this
Because the alternative is a market where the informed party wins on timing and the uninformed one pays for it, and that is not a market we want to be the informed party in. We would rather compete on grading honestly and answering email quickly.
Also, frankly, a January order is easier for us to fill well. In April we are sending people the container we have; in January we are sending them the container they should have.