David Levine is the fourth generation of his family at Ted Levine Drum in South El Monte, California, one of the longest-running drum reconditioning companies in the United States. He serves as Chair of the Reusable Industrial Packaging Association (RIPA) and has spent his career at the intersection of operations, regulation, and industry advocacy.

In this conversation:

Why reconditioned IBC totes and drums are held to the same DOT and EPA standards as new packaging - and how the "used means less than" perception is flat wrong

What happened when RIPA members were finally let inside an Army depot drop-test facility - and what everyone learned when the packagers met the testers for the first time

How Ted Levine Drum navigated Covid-era supply chain chaos as an independent family operation, and why that flexibility was a competitive advantage

What RFID tracking, AI quality checks, and plant robotics actually look like in a reconditioning facility - and which technologies are already rolling out in Europe

The one thing David would change across the entire industry if he could: uniform compliance, everywhere, no exceptions

ABOUT RON ALTHOUSE

Ron Althouse is the host of The Tote Guys podcast and a leader at Container Technology Inc., a reusable industrial packaging company based in California. The show is built for fleet managers, chemical companies, and packaging buyers who want straight talk on IBC totes, drum reconditioning, and the liquid packaging industry.

www.containertechnology.com