Used plastic pallets in Hagerstown

Hagerstown by county

Hagerstown-Martinsburg spans 3 counties (Washington, Berkeley, Morgan). In the counties where the Bureau of Labor Statistics can publish, private employers had 1,842 warehousing and storage jobs in 2025, 2.1% of local private jobs.

Hagerstown against Maryland

The metro's disclosed-county total set beside the state's whole count, so the two can be read together.

ZIPs with the most warehouses

Census ZIP Code Business Patterns for 2023 list 1 ZIPs here with the most warehousing establishments, 14 between them. 21740 (Hagerstown) leads with 14, 100% of the listed total.

What the ratios say

The BLS leaves out counties where one employer would show through, so the 1,842 jobs counted for Hagerstown may understate the metro.

• Hagerstown ranks 55th of the 60 metros in the data by disclosed warehousing jobs, with 1,842 against a median of 13,652.
• Spread across 3 counties, that is 614 warehousing jobs per county on average.
• 21740 (Hagerstown) is the one ZIP the Census lists here, with 14 warehousing establishments.
• Maryland has 29,966 warehousing jobs in all, so the disclosed counties of Hagerstown are 6.1% of the state.
• Warehousing is 2.1% of private jobs in these counties; where it is higher than average, pallets are a daily cost and sellers of surplus are common.
• One Interstate in the data serves the metro, and it carries 39,746 warehousing jobs along the route.
• The metros closest in size are Laredo (2,014, 172 above) and Knoxville (1,751, 91 below).
• Of the 3 counties in the metro, the BLS discloses 1 for warehousing, which together account for 1,842 of the 1,842 jobs counted.
• Reaching the median metro would take 7.4 times the disclosed warehousing jobs Hagerstown has now.
• For every warehousing job in these counties there are about 47 other private jobs, so pallet-using work is spread thinly across 3 counties.

Where Hagerstown ranks

Hagerstown is one of the 6 smallest of the 60 metros by disclosed warehousing jobs. The largest, Inland Empire, counts 118,368, which is 64 times as many.

Corridors through Hagerstown

Interstate 81 is the Interstate in our data that serves Hagerstown.

Other metros nearby

Metros that share a corridor with Hagerstown, and the other metros in Maryland, with their disclosed warehousing jobs.

The ladder around Hagerstown

Metros ranked by disclosed warehousing jobs: Hagerstown with the two above it and the two below.

Hagerstown's pallet-using trades

Against the national share of employment, plastics product manufacturing is the most concentrated pallet-using line in Hagerstown-Martinsburg, at 4.3x. Plastics plants are both pallet buyers and recyclers: broken pallets are bought by weight as HDPE or PP feedstock.

• Plastics product manufacturing: 1,661 jobs in the disclosed counties, 0.3% of the 575,006 across the US, or 0.90 for every warehousing job here.
• Chemical manufacturing: 2,378 jobs in the disclosed counties, 0.3% of the 892,426 across the US, or 1.29 for every warehousing job here.
• Warehousing and storage: 1,842 jobs in the disclosed counties, 0.1% of the 1,901,976 across the US, or 1.00 for every warehousing job here.

Wear you can measure

• Deck bow: lay the straight edge across and slide a feeler between it and the deck.
• Runner flattening: compare the thickness of a worn runner with an unworn one.
• Corner loss: hold a square against the corner and note any missing plastic.
• Pocket height: measure the opening at both ends of each fork pocket.
• Weight: weigh three pallets on a platform scale and note the spread.

Photographs worth taking

• One wide shot of each stack with a tape or a person for scale.
• The four corners of a sample pallet, close enough to show gouges.
• The underside, including the runners and the bottom of each fork pocket.
• Any plate, label, moulded number or mark, shot square on and in raking light.
• Repairs and cracks, with a coin or a ruler beside them to show size.

When something looks wrong

• Stop unloading and photograph the fault before anything moves.
• Count how many pallets show the same fault, to see if it is a lot problem or a one-off.
• Tell the desk or the seller in writing the same day, with the photographs attached.
• Hold the affected stacks apart until you hear back.
• Keep one sample pallet unused, so the maker or an inspector can examine it.

What to send for a Hagerstown lot

• Footprint: whatever the plant ships on
• Grade: a mixed lot or a broken lot
• Dock ZIP
• Quantity band

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