Used plastic pallet guides
These guides answer what a buyer of used plastic pallets asks before and after the first lot: how to inspect, whether it is worth it, how long they last, whether they can be repaired and who owns a marked pallet.
- Guides
- 13
- Start with
- How to inspect
- Ratings
- Static, dynamic, racking
- Ownership
- Pool-marked pallets
Where to start
If you are about to inspect a lot, start with the inspection guide. If you are deciding whether to buy used at all, start with the worth-it guide. If you are holding pallets with someone else's name on them, start with the pool-marked pallets guide.
Questions the guides answer
- Are used plastic pallets worth buying?
- How do I inspect a used plastic pallet?
- How long do plastic pallets last?
- Can you reuse plastic pallets?
- Can plastic pallets be repaired, and how?
- What do static, dynamic and racking ratings mean?
- Can I buy pool-marked plastic pallets?
How the guides are organised
The guides follow the order of a purchase. Start with what used means and how pallets are graded, move to inspection and ratings, then to cost, repair and cleaning, and finish with ownership, export and resale. Each guide ends with its sources, and none contains a price. If you only have a minute, the inspection guide and the ratings guide answer most of the questions that arrive with a request.
The guides name the maker, the agency or the standard behind a claim wherever a claim is made. Where a point is a judgement call, such as when a repaired pallet is acceptable, the guide says whose judgement it is: yours, the maker's, or your building's engineer.
Who the guides are for
Readers arrive from three directions: a purchasing agent comparing quotes, a warehouse supervisor holding a cracked pallet, and a shipper booking a container. The guides keep to practical vocabulary so any of them can follow, and they define a trade term the first time it appears. Skim the headings, jump to the guide that matches the question in front of you, and come back to the request form when you have a footprint and a grade in mind.
Reading dates and sources
Each guide ends with its sources and a last-reviewed date. Where a source is a maker's page or an agency document, the guide names it so you can open it. When a source changes, the guide is revised, and the date moves with it. If two guides ever disagree, trust the one with the newer review date and tell the desk.
Safe handling at the stack
- Lift with the tines fully under the load and tilt back slightly before travelling.
- Never climb a stack, and never stand beside one while it is being moved.
- Take a damaged pallet out of service at once and tag it, so nobody reloads it.
- Keep stack heights even and edges square, since a leaning stack feeds on itself.
- Match tine length to the pallet, because short tines can crack the underside of a deck.
Training the dock crew
- Show new staff three pallets: one acceptable, one marginal, one rejected.
- Agree on words for faults, such as crack, gouge, bow and dish, and use them.
- Tell people to stop and ask when a pallet carries any mark they do not recognise.
- Remind drivers to enter pockets squarely, since angled entry splits the pocket wall.
- Walk the dock together once a month and compare notes.
Walk-around checklist
The same four stops for every lot, in order. Tick each as you go.
- 1Deck: read the inspection guide first
- 2Corners: read the ratings guide before racking
- 3Runners: read the repair guides before buying a welded lot
- 4Fork pockets: read the pool guide before selling a marked lot
Words used on this page
- Runners
- Bottom rails that touch the floor or rack and carry the load.
- Welding repair
- Plastic is hard to glue, so cracked parts are normally welded.
- Fork pocket
- Opening in the pallet where the forks go.
- Dynamic load
- Weight a pallet carries while moving on a forklift, pallet jack or conveyor.
- Static load
- Weight a pallet carries at rest, or the bottom pallet carries when stacked. The highest of the three ratings.
What the sources say
- Static capacity is the highest of the three ratings; racking is often the lowest; dynamic is always lower than static. nelsoncompany.com
- That Nelson model is under 5 in tall, which the page says suits air freight, and works with automation and most roller conveyors. nelsoncompany.com
- Plastic pallets can deform (creep) under heavy long-term loads and are hard to repair. en.wikipedia.org
- A used Nelson 48 x 40 x 6.3 in HDPE one-piece pallet weighs 49 lb with 30,000 lb static, 5,000 lb dynamic and 2,200 lb racking ratings. nelsoncompany.com
How a request works
- Pick the footprint, then the grade you can live with.
- Say what the pallets will carry and how many you need.
- Read the written lot description that comes back.
- Agree the lot before anything moves.
The four grades, in a line each
- Like new. A few trips only. Clean, no cracks, no missing parts, deck and runners flat.
- Used and clean. Many trips, scuffs and colour variation, but whole and usable for general-purpose or closed-loop work.
- Repaired. A cracked or chipped part welded or swapped. Some designs use snap-lock parts for repair.
- Mixed lot. Mixed makers, colours and sizes sold by the truckload, sorted by footprint.
Questions people ask
Are these guides engineering advice?
No. They explain terms and point to makers, standards and sources. Your pallet's maker and your building's engineer decide what is safe.
Where do the facts come from?
Each guide lists its sources with the date they were last reviewed.
Can I ask a question?
Use the contact page. We answer by email.
Pages in this section
Ask for a lot
Pick a footprint and a grade. The reply describes a matched lot in writing.