Plastic crates and bulk bins in Ohio

Plants from Toledo to Chillicothe

Honda builds vehicles in Marysville and East Liberty, northwest of Columbus. Ford builds at Ohio Assembly in Avon Lake, west of Cleveland, and Stellantis at the Toledo Complex. Kenworth builds trucks in Chillicothe, south of Columbus. Supplier plants ship into those lines and into assembly plants in neighboring states, and much of that freight rides I-75 north and south or I-70 and I-80 east and west.

The bulk container of choice is the 48x45 collapsible. ORBIS calls that footprint the AIAG standard and offers its BulkPak in 17 heights from about 19 to 50 inches, rated 1,500 to 2,000 lb. A long-established supply base also feeds a secondhand market: containers from ended programs get inspected, repaired and resold, so used or refurbished units are a sensible first question.

What refurbishing a collapsible involves

Collapsibles wear in predictable places. Drop doors get forked and their hinges crack; latch pins and wall-locking tabs break; corners scuff; bases take punctures from forklift tines; and lids warp or go missing. Many designs use replaceable wall panels and doors, so a refurbisher can swap the damaged part instead of scrapping the box.

A refurbished unit has typically been washed, stripped of old labels and placards, inspected, repaired with matching parts and sorted by model and color. It's still a used container with a history, so we tell you what we know of where it came from. ORBIS says it grades its own containers A, B or C by condition rather than retiring them by age; we grade every lot we quote the same way and spell out what the letter means. See refurbished containers and grades.

Ohio buyers and their containers

Ordering for a supplier program

Start from the receiving plant's packaging spec. It names the footprint and height, how many drop doors and on which side, the base style, the lid, placard and label locations and often the color. Send it with your quote request, along with your daily volume and how many days a container spends in the loop. We'll suggest a count that covers containers at your dock, in transit, at the plant and on the way back.

Ask for samples on a large order. One unit on your line will reveal fit issues, like a lid that interferes with a conveyor guide, faster than any drawing. Small parts usually ride in hand-held euro containers on a 48x45 pallet, and the dunnage inside every box is quoted per part.

Hogs, turkeys, milk and grain

Ohio had about 2.75 million hogs on December 1, 2025, raised 6.2 million turkeys in 2025 and produced about 5.75 billion lb of milk. Soybeans and corn led 2025 crops at about $2.74 billion and $2.48 billion in value of production. Pork and turkey plants buy washable combo bins and lugs rated for cold rooms; dairies buy case crates. For product contact, we never call a used container food-grade; ask the maker's documents and tell us what the box held.

Ohio's dairies also run returnable milk and case crates between plant and store. Those crates take hard knocks on delivery routes, so plants reorder them regularly and want exact matches for their stacking and conveyor equipment.

Corridors, river ports and freight

I-75 runs from Toledo through Dayton to Cincinnati, I-71 links Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, I-70 crosses through Columbus, I-80 and I-90 run along the north, and I-77 drops south from Cleveland. The Mid-Ohio Valley Port ranked 17th and the Ports of Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky 19th among US ports by 2023 total trade.

Short in-state hauls suit LTL for small orders; a program of collapsibles is a truckload. Folded loads carry far more units: ORBIS lists 240 folded GP4048-34 containers per 53-foot trailer against 90 assembled.

Selling surplus from Ohio

Ohio suppliers generate a lot of surplus when programs end. We buy collapsibles with or without dunnage, euro bins, totes and bins in volume. Send counts, model, height, door setup, grade, color and the pickup address. Start at sell collapsibles.