The decision, in four questions
1. Does it move on a public road with regulated product in it?
If yes, you need a valid UN marking with current retest dates — Grade A or rebottled. Nothing else will do, and no amount of cleaning changes that. If no, skip straight to question three.
2. Is there food, drink, cosmetic or potable water contact?
If yes, you need a documented food-only history or a virgin bottle. Grade A food-grade or rebottled. A tote that held industrial chemistry can never come back to food service — permeation is permanent.
3. Does anyone outside your business see it?
If yes, Grade A industrial is worth the premium purely on appearance. If no, Grade B does exactly the same job for eighty dollars less and the staining is cosmetic.
4. Does it ever leave the spot you put it in?
If no, Grade C. Static water storage, rainwater, ballast, containment, upcycling. At $95 it is not a compromise — it is the correct specification, and buying anything more is wasted money.
The most common expensive mistake
Buying Grade A for a job Grade B would do. We talk people down from this several times a week. The second most common is the opposite and much worse: buying Grade B for a job that legally requires a current mark. One of those costs money; the other costs a fine and a stopped shipment.
Holding a supplier to a grade
Because grading is not standardised, the only protection you have is a written definition. Ask any yard — including us — for three things before you commit to volume: the prior-contents declaration, the leakproofness test record keyed to the serial, and a photograph of the interior. A supplier who cannot produce all three is not grading, they are guessing.
