We’ve been busy doing grueling and grimy work, so I didn’t take many photos.

During Sparky’s long day, we shuttled IBC totes from the mulch yard, to my buddy’s house for later retrieval.  He’s got a thriving firewood business, so I wanted to get the totes from his house to mine, then set them up for firewood.

None of that is difficult, but all of it is dirty and arduous.  The IBC tote is the metal pallet and cage.  The plastic tank is a bladder.  The whole thing weighs about 140 pounds.   That would be a hard lift, but can be muscled around.

To load it up, as shown, a tote is struggled on to the trailer, the trailer get unhitched, then the tote is muscled into the bed.  That is always a little dicey.

The other two totes go into the trailer pretty easily.  The maneuvering is reversed at my house to unload.  Sparky likes going to Joe’s house because there are different rabbits and deer to investigate and new trees that need a good pissing.

Smith Bros grinds their own mulch, and dye it black or brown.  The dye comes in these IBC totes.  They sell the IBC totes for twenty bucks each, which is baffling to me.  A new IBC tote costs about $300, and these are in great shape.  I don’t get how there isn’t a deposit on the totes so they can be returned and reused.

The dye is nasty.  Because it’s used on mulch, it isn’t toxic to plants or animals, but it gets on everything.  When it dries, it’s comes off on everything it touches, but doesn’t wash off easily. 

The bladders need to be removed and discarded.  To reduce the volume, they get cut up.  That’s a filthy business.

I had this idea to redirect my down spout into an IBC tote.  When it was full, I’d open the valve at the bottom to flush out the dye.  It might have worked if we’d had more rain.  Two totes did fill up, and the rain water was black, so some dye was flushed out.  It might have made the bladders less messy to cut up, but I wasn’t going to spend months flushing out a dozen IBC bladders.

That’s what I’ve been doing.  The plastic is high quality, so should be good for something, so I haven’t taken any of it to the dump.

The top of the bladder is cut off, and used to cover the firewood that goes in the tote. 

The bottom part is cut off and saved for some future use.  It works well as a sled to pull with the ATV.  When digging up a tree to replant, the root ball is bigger and heavier than you’d think.  It might be good to maneuver it onto an IBC sled, and tow it to where I need it.

The center section of the bladder is a rectangle of thick plastic that is something like 14 feet long and 40 inches wide.  I have a dozen of those rolled up, and they must be useful.

The firewood totes are sitting on these plastic sheets.  That keeps them from sinking into the mud and keeps weeds from growing up and around the totes.  That’s the only use for them so far.

An ongoing project will be filling the dozen new tote with firewood.

The purpose of this whole thing was to move away from wood rack for firewood storage.  I can move full totes with the panzer, so that should be more convenient.  I’ve got almost a dozen wood racks to dismantle for wood salvage.

Sparky doesn’t care if it’s wood racks or IBC totes.  He knows that there are mice inside, and rabbits under or around, so he is interested.