Wood pallet recycling is a blanket term for the business of sorting, refurbishing, dismantling and remanufacturing of pallets for sale, as well as the grinding of wood pallets and pallet components for for fiber products. Pallet recycling is a multi-billion dollar sector of the pallet industry in the U.S.
The most common pallet sizes are typically most attractive to recyclers. In the U.S., this would include the common 48x40” pallet, as well as other popular sizes such as 40x40”, 42x42”, and 48x48”.
Pallet recycling has become a rapidly growing segment of the pallet industry in the in recent decades as customer perceptions about used pallets have changed. Pallet users have gradually become comfortable making use of reconditioned pallets, which are often offered at a substantially better price than new pallets of similar quality. Additionally, pallet recyclers also perform a huge service to industry by removing empty pallets from accumulation points such as manufacturing plants and distribution centers.
Operations
Pallet recycling companies are often located in proximity to urban areas or other locations such as distribution centers or manufacturing plants where excessive amount of unwanted empty pallets accumulate. Pallet recyclers may buy the empty pallets or “cores,” as the empty pallets are referred, from customers, or if they have little resale value because of unpopular size or other construction attributes, they may charge the customer to take away the empty pallets. Recycling companies may also purchase empty pallets from street vendors arriving with small truckloads of pallets they have accumulated from retail outlets or other small businesses.
Large recycling companies may operate their own fleet of trailers, or utilize a transport company for inbound delivery. Arriving pallets are typically are sorted into different sizes and grades. Pallets may be sorted into:
- popular sizes and grades for sale without repair,
- repairable pallets,
- pallets for dismantling,
- unwanted pallets and components to be ground into wood fiber.
Marketing
Wood pallet recyclers often act in the secondary marketplace, buying, refurbishing and selling used pallets. Pallet recyclers may also perform pallet repair for specific customers, as well as other services such as retrieval of customer-owned pallets on behalf of those customers. Pallets are typically sold by the sales department of pallet recyclers, or through pallet brokers, which act as intermediaries between pallet customers and pallet recyclers. Pallet recyclers also sell fiber products of various types generated from broken pallets, including raw fiber, as well as value-added offerings such as colored landscape mulch and wood pellets.
