A wash record is a short document and almost nobody reads it properly. Here is what each line means, what a good one looks like, and which omission should make you ask another question.
What it is
A per-batch record of how a container was cleaned: the chemistry, its concentration, the temperature, the dwell time, the rinse regime, the date and the operator. It travels with the unit and it is the document your auditor will ask for when they want to know whether “cleaned” means anything.
Line by line
Cargo class
Not the specific product — the class we assigned it for cleaning purposes. Water-based ag-chem, detergents and surfactants, food syrups and oils, latex and adhesives, cured resin. The class determines the dwell time, so it is the line that drives everything below it.
Chemistry and concentration
For a standard industrial cycle this is sodium hydroxide at a stated concentration. For a food programme cycle it will name agents listed under 21 CFR 178.1010. If a record says “detergent” with no further detail, that is not a record, it is a note.
Temperature
Our caustic stage runs between 130 and 150 °F, held in a jacketed tank. Temperature matters because dwell time and temperature trade against each other — a cooler bath needs longer. A record with a dwell time and no temperature is only half the information.
Dwell time
Four minutes for water-based ag-chem, six for food syrups and oils, eight for detergents, twelve for latex and adhesives, fourteen plus rework for cured resin. If you see a fourteen-minute dwell on a unit, it had something difficult in it, and that is useful context.
Rinse regime
Ours is two passes: reclaimed water first, fresh-water polish second. The relevant question for any supplier is whether the final surface the cargo touches has seen clean water. A single-pass reclaimed rinse does not meet that.
Dry stage
Air knife plus dwell, eight minutes in summer and twenty in winter. Residual moisture in a sealed HDPE bottle is how mould and odour start, and it is the most common fault in units washed by people in a hurry.
Operator and date
A named human and a date. This is the accountability line, and it is the one that makes the rest of the document credible.
Three omissions that should prompt a question
- No prior cargo class. If the supplier cannot say what class the unit was cleaned for, they did not select a cycle — they ran a default. Ask what was in it.
- No temperature. Dwell time without temperature is unverifiable. Two identical dwell times at different temperatures are different cleans.
- No operator. Anonymous records are records nobody is accountable for. It is a small thing and it tells you a lot about how the operation is run.
What a wash record does not tell you
It does not make a container food grade. That requires all three conditions — documented food-only prior cargo, listed wash chemistry and a seal applied at the dry stage — and the wash record only evidences the second. A beautifully detailed wash record on a unit that previously held a surfactant is still not a food container.
It also does not tell you about condition. That is the grade card, which is a separate document covering nineteen inspection points. The two travel together and they answer different questions.
Keeping them
We retain wash records for seven years and we will reissue a copy for any unit we can identify. If you are in a regulated industry, file them with the delivery paperwork rather than discarding them — the one you will be asked for is always the one you threw away.
The full list of what ships with every order is on the certifications page.
A real record, annotated
Here is a typical line from our log, with what each field is for:
| Field | Value | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Unit ID | TO-2026-04118 | Ties the record to the physical container |
| Cargo class | Class 2 — detergents / surfactants | Drives dwell time and chemistry |
| Prior cargo | Non-ionic surfactant blend, 18% | Carried forward from the declaration |
| Chemistry | NaOH solution | What was used |
| Concentration | As per batch log 2026-04-118 | Traceable to the batch record |
| Temperature | 141 °F | Half of the clean; useless without dwell |
| Dwell | 8 min | The other half |
| Agitation | Yes, 3 min rotating head | Confirms corners and dome were reached |
| Rinse | 2 pass — reclaimed + fresh polish | Final surface saw clean water |
| Dry | Air knife + 14 min dwell | Moisture is how odour and mould start |
| Sniff check | Pass | The only reliable fixed-odour test |
| Operator | I.D. | Accountability |
| Date | 2026-04-18 | Age of the clean at point of sale |
The date, which is more useful than people realise
A wash date tells you how long the container has been sitting clean. A unit washed yesterday and a unit washed eight months ago are both clean, and the second has had eight months to acquire moisture through a vent, dust through a loose lid, or an insect through an open outlet.
We cap and seal units after drying for exactly this reason, and we will re-run a unit that has been on the pad a long time before shipping it on a food programme order. If your application is sensitive, it is a reasonable thing to ask about.
Food programme records differ
A food cycle record names the agents and references their listing under 21 CFR 178.1010, records that the run was dedicated rather than shared, and records the seal applied at the dry stage with its tamper-evident band number.
If you are buying food-grade units and the wash record does not mention the listing or the seal, you are looking at an industrial record on a unit somebody is calling food grade. That is the single most useful audit check available to you. The three conditions are set out on the food-grade totes page.
Three questions to ask any supplier about their records
- How long do you retain them? Ours is seven years. A supplier who does not retain them cannot reissue one when your auditor asks in 2029.
- Are they per unit or per batch? Per batch is acceptable if the batch is traceable to units. Per shipment is not a record.
- Who assigns the cargo class? If the answer is “the operator decides at the tank,” expect variance. It should be assigned from the declaration at the inbound dock, before anybody sees the residue.
What the record cannot do for you
It does not establish condition — that is the grade card, which covers nineteen inspection points and is a separate document. It does not make a container food grade, which requires documented food-only history as well. And it does not transfer responsibility for whether the container suits your specific product, fill temperature and shelf life; that determination is yours.
What it does is let you verify that “cleaned” meant something specific, performed by a named person, on a stated date, to a stated recipe. In an industry where “washed” frequently means “hosed out,” that is worth reading.
