Can you reuse plastic pallets?

Reuse in three cases

Reuse and ownership

Reuse is only yours to do with your own pallets. A pool pallet or one with another company's mark may belong to its owner. California law lets a recycler take possession of stray proprietary pallets only if the owner cannot be identified or fails to retrieve them in time, with a 35-day period before they can be declared abandoned.

A reuse routine

The broken ones go to a recycler who grinds them into regrind. They do not go back on a load.

1. Sort by footprint.
2. Walk each pallet: deck, corners, runners, pockets.
3. Pull the broken ones for recycling.
4. Set aside any with a pool mark.
5. Clean if the next load needs it.
6. Record what went back in service.

Reuse is a design assumption

Plastic pallets are built for many trips, which is why a used market exists at all. A pallet that has made fifty trips has not used up its life as a wood pallet might, but wear accumulates, and the question is how much. Ask for the count of trips if anyone knows it, and look for the signs: corners rounded by forks, runners polished by racks, and deck colour faded by light.

Reuse also depends on the load. A pallet that carried light goods on a flat floor for years may be in better shape than one that was racked heavy for a few months.

Pooling, deposits and closed loops

Reuse can be organised three ways. A pool owns the pallets and rents them. A deposit scheme charges a refundable amount for each pallet. A closed loop is a private circuit between two sites that exchange the same pallets. Each answers who owns the pallet and who pays for its loss, and a used lot may carry marks from any of them. Ask which scheme a pallet belonged to before treating it as free stock.

What to write down about a lot

• Footprint in both units, with the readings you took rather than the label.
• Number of stacks, pallets per stack and any odd stacks left over.
• Makers and model numbers seen on plates or moulded into the ribs.
• Count of repaired, mismatched or cracked pieces, and where each sits.
• Marks, colours and any smell, with a note on who confirmed each.

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.

Words used on this page

Regrind

Plastic ground from used or scrap parts into flakes for moulding again.

Runners

Bottom rails that touch the floor or rack and carry the load.

Fork pocket

Opening in the pallet where the forks go.

Closed loop

Pallets that travel between known sites and come back, so they are never lost to a downstream user.

Multi-trip pallet

A pallet designed to be returned and reused many times.

What the sources say

• Plastic pallets weigh about 3 to 15 lb when light and up to 300 lb when heavy; a typical GMA wood pallet weighs about 37 lb. en.wikipedia.org
• Only pallets designed for unsupported racking carry a racking rating. nelsoncompany.com
• About 500 million pallets are made each year as of 2020, with about 2 billion in use in the US. en.wikipedia.org
• In 2011 a Quebec court ruled that CHEP's identified blue pallets belong to CHEP and cannot be sold. palletenterprise.com

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