Gaylords with print or labels can still sell

What print does and does not do

A gaylord is made to carry what is in it. Print on a wall does not change what the board can carry. A company name, a part description or a barcode label stapled to a side does not weaken the box. It only matters if the next user cares what is on the outside.

Most buyers of used gaylords are shipping parts, scrap, resin or empties, and they care about strength and fit, not printing. Some do care, especially if the box will stand on a customer's dock. Say what is printed and we tell you who would mind.

What to look at instead

• Dry. Press the bottom corner. Soft means damp, and damp means a lower grade.
• Square. The corners should be square and the walls straight. Bowing means lost strength.
• The bottom. Flaps intact, no punctures from pallet nails, no crushing.
• The stamp. The maker's stamp tells you what the board is rated for.

Customer and carrier labels

Old shipping labels are paper stuck to the wall. They come off or they stay. If a label shows a customer's part number or a hazard diamond, the next user should not read it as a statement about the new contents. Peel it, cross it out with a marker, or tell us and we advise.

Hazard labels deserve more care. A box that held regulated material is not a clean slate because it is empty, and a used box is not UN-rated unless certified. See the UN-rated page and food, hazmat and used gaylords.

Print and grade

Print does not lower a grade by itself. A Grade A box with a printed logo is still Grade A. A box with heavy marker, tape or paint over a wall may be Grade B if the board is sound. See the grade sheet. If the print is of a brand with restrictions on reuse, say so in the request.

Send the footprint, the walls, how many and what the print is. A phone photo of a typical wall is enough.

Facts and figures

• US corrugated boxes had a recycling rate of 96.5 percent in 2018. (epa.gov, retrieved 2026-11-10.)
• A bulk box is also called a bulk bin, skid box, pallet box, bin box, gaylord or octabin, and is usually double-wall or triple-wall corrugated fiberboard. (Wikipedia, Bulk box, retrieved 2026-11-10.)

Terms

• single trip: Used once, the common description for top-grade used gaylords.
• OCC: Old corrugated containers, the recycling grade a box becomes when it can't be reused.
• knocked down (KD): Folded flat for shipping or return.

Taking care of old labels

• Peel stale shipping labels when they come off cleanly.
• Cover or black out a competitor's logo only if the buyer asks.
• Leave maker stamps untouched.