Used plastic pallets for plastics manufacturing

The plant on all three sides of the trade

A moulder knows what a pallet is made of. HDPE is the most common resin in plastic pallets, with resin code 2, a density of 930 to 970 kg/m3 and a melting point of about 131.8 C, while PP is more rigid. Plastics plants therefore ask about resin and recycled content first. Recycled-content pallets exist: one maker offers a standard-duty nestable with up to 90 percent recycled content in black.

Feedstock and the regrind trade

Broken pallets are bought by weight as HDPE or PP feedstock, and recyclers want them clean and separated by resin and colour. Greystone Logistics processed about 60 million pounds of recycled plastic in the year ended May 31, 2024, using damaged plastic pallets from a buy-back program among its feedstock. As one dated data point, in April 2017 HDPE regrind from drums and IBCs was 24 to 27 cents per pound picked up in the US South. That is history and not a quote.

Resin identification codes do not indicate whether a product is recyclable; ASTM D7611 governs the coding.

Jobs and leading states

National totals from the market data, with the three states that have the most jobs in each line.

What to send us

If you are retiring a footprint, send the count, the maker and the condition. If you are short, send the footprint and grade you need. Either way the request form has the fields.

• Retiring stock: footprint, count, makers
• Buying: footprint, grade, quantity band
• Broken stock: weight, resin if known

Both buyer and recycler

A plastics plant may buy pallets for its own floor and sell broken ones to a recycler by weight. Ask the desk which you are: a plant that retires a footprint and wants to sell the whole stock, or one that is short and wants a mixed lot. Say which resin matters to you, because HDPE is the most common in plastic pallets and PP is more rigid.

Selling broken pallets

Broken pallets are bought by weight as feedstock, and recyclers pay more for clean, sorted material. Separate by resin and colour, remove metal, wood and labels, and keep loose material dry. A tidy load fetches better terms and is easier to describe.

On the receiving dock

• Count stacks before pallets, then count the pallets in two stacks to confirm the tally.
• Lay a tape across the deck and along the runners of three pallets from different stacks.
• Look for pooled marks, bar codes and moulded owner names before anything is put away.
• Sign for the count and note any shortfall on the delivery receipt in the driver's presence.
• Photograph the stacks from both ends while the trailer doors are still open.

Paperwork to keep

• The written lot description and the date it was sent.
• Your own count, signed and dated by whoever received the load.
• Photographs of stacks, plates and any marks, stored with the order number.
• The maker's papers for resin, colour or rating, where the job needs them.
• A line naming who agreed to which exceptions, so a later dispute has a record.

Words used on this page

Regrind

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

Resin identification code

Number on a plastic part for the resin, which does not itself say whether it is recyclable.

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.

Nestable

Empty pallets stack inside one another, cutting empty storage space by up to 75 percent.

What the sources say

• In April 2017, HDPE HMW regrind from drums and IBCs was 24 to 27 cents per pound picked up in the US South (historical, not current). resource-recycling.com
• Rehrig Pacific offers the standard-duty nestable with recycled content of up to 90 percent in black, and describes it as 100 percent recyclable. rehrigpacific.com
• Rehrig Pacific's heavy-duty nestable can be made with post-consumer or post-industrial recycled material, up to 30 percent in black and up to 10 percent in colour, and is RFID compatible. rehrigpacific.com
• About 500 million pallets are made each year as of 2020, with about 2 billion in use in the US. en.wikipedia.org

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