Plastic pallet buyers: tell us what is on your dock

Pick what is on the pallets. The rail shows where the lot lands.

Intake slip

Size

Style

Grade

Marks

Count

ZIP where they sit

40 pallets · 48 x 40 in

SOLDRETURNSCRAP

Whole and usable, so it reads as a reuse lot.

Add the ZIP to finish the slip.

What a buyer will want to see

Photos of 48 x 40 on every deck
A photo of one pallet from above and one from the side
The model or rating mark, so the nestable claim can be checked

The ruling is a first read. It states no price, minimum or turnaround; the desk answers those after it has seen the lot.

Every pile of plastic pallets ends one of three ways: sold, sent back to its pool owner, or ground up as scrap. This desk reads your pile and tells you which, before anyone drives out.

Tell us what's on the dock. We sort it: sell, return or scrap.

What a buyer reads

A buyer reads a lot in five steps, and the sorter above asks for the same five things. Each one decides something different.

The five reads
Read	What it decides	Where to look
Size	Whether the lot fits a buyer's racks and loads. The 48 x 40 GMA footprint is the one most lots are.	Sizes
Style	What the pallet can carry: nestable, rackable, stackable, export or hygienic.	Styles
Grade	New, like new, used and sound, used and repaired, or a mixed lot.	Grades
Branding	Whether the pallets are yours to sell at all.	Pool-marked
Location	Whether a truck can reach them, read from the ZIP.	Areas

Is it yours to sell?

Check this first. Pooling means renting pallets from a company that owns, tracks and collects them. A pallet with an iGPS, CHEP or Orbis mark, or an RFID tag, belongs to its pool, whoever is holding it. The desk does not buy them from a holder and will not help remove, cover or hide a mark.

Look at the corners, the long sides, the feet and the centre of the deck.
Photograph every mark you find, and pull marked stacks into a lane of their own.
Read iGPS, CHEP and RFID-tagged pallets before you decide anything.

Sold

A reusable lot is whole, unmarked and countable. A stock of sound 48 x 40 pallets sells, a uniform footprint retired by a plant sells, and so do closed-loop stacks that came out of your own captive pallet fleet. A uniform lot is simple to inspect and fills a truck without sorting. See grades and the retired footprint guide.

Returned

Pool-marked pallets and strays from suppliers go back to whoever owns them. The desk can tell you which pool a mark points to and what the usual return route is, but a pooled pallet is never the holder's to sell. Start with strays from suppliers and CHEP return.

Scrapped

Cracked, burnt or crushed decks are scrap. A recycler buys them by weight and grinds them to regrind, sorted by resin and colour. Most pallets are HDPE, resin code 2, with stiffer ones in PP. Read what to do with damaged pallets before you mix them into a good lot.

SOLD

Whole, unmarked, counted. Sorted by footprint.

RETURN

A name, logo or tag means an owner. Photograph and set apart.

SCRAP

Cracked or crushed. Sold by weight, ground to regrind.

Who sends us lots

Once or every month

The form is the same for a one-time clearance and for a standing arrangement. It asks you to choose one lot, repeat supply, or not sure yet. Read buyback for the standing outlet and one lot or every month for how to choose.

Questions at the dock

Are plastic pallets exempt from ISPM 15?

Yes. The USDA lists plastic pallets among products not subject to its wood packaging regulation. Read ISPM 15 and plastic.

Can I sell pallets with CHEP or iGPS marks?

No. Pooled pallets belong to the pool. See can you sell CHEP pallets.

Will you take a mixed lot?

Many buyers do, once it is sorted by footprint and the marked and broken pallets are pulled. See mixed lots.

Which photos should I send?

Five: one pallet from above, one from the side, a whole stack, the marks and the worst deck. See photos buyers want.

Send the lot

The request form is the sorter at the top of this page. Go back to the sorter, fill in what you have, and press Send this lot. It carries your answers into the form so nothing is typed twice.

Words you will meet

Pooling: Renting pallets from a company that owns, tracks and collects them instead of buying.
Profile extrusion: Pushing resin through a die to make long shapes that form pallet parts.
Resin identification code: Number on a plastic part for the resin, which does not itself say whether it is recyclable.
Closed loop: Pallets that travel between known sites and come back, so they are never lost to a downstream user.
Captive pallet: A pallet owned and kept inside one company or loop.
PP: Polypropylene. More rigid than HDPE and better with heat and harsh chemicals; used where rack stiffness matters.
Recycled-content pallet: A pallet moulded partly or wholly from post-industrial or post-consumer resin.
Nest increment: How much height each extra nested pallet adds to a stack.
Stackable: Loaded pallets can sit on top of each other, up to the static rating.
One-way pallet: A cheaper pallet shipped with the load and not expected back.
RFID: Radio tag moulded or fixed into a pallet so it can be tracked.
FM 4996: FM Approvals standard that rates a pallet as equal to wood in fire tests.
UL 2335: UL fire-test standard for storage pallets, with an idle pallet test and a commodity storage test.
Commodity classification: Sprinkler design class of stored goods; an unlisted plastic pallet can raise it.
Creep: Slow bending of plastic under a heavy load held for a long time.
Injection moulding: Pallet made by forcing molten resin into a mould at high pressure.

Who asks, and what they need

Plants changing packaging or pallet size: Retire a whole stock of one footprint at once; want it sold or ground up, not landfilled.
Plastic recyclers and pallet makers: Buy broken pallets by weight as HDPE or PP feedstock; want clean, sorted, separated by resin and colour.
Retailers that collect pooled or one-way pallets: Stacks of marked and unmarked pallets left by suppliers; need to know which can be sold and which belong to a pool.

What the sources say

USDA APHIS lists plastic pallets among products not subject to APHIS regulation, as an alternative to wood packaging material. (aphis.usda.gov)
USDA APHIS requires wood packaging material entering the US to be treated and certified under ISPM 15, and lists plastic pallets among alternatives that are not subject to APHIS regulation. (aphis.usda.gov)
A Nelson 48 x 40 x 4.8 in nestable, stackable, rackable polypropylene pallet weighs 18.0 lb with ratings of 10,500 lb static, 3,100 lb dynamic and 2,700 lb racking, and is listed as ISPM 15 exempt. (nelsoncompany.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)
That Nelson model lists about 60 pallets per stack and 1,800 per truck. (nelsoncompany.com)
Advanced composite material pallets are 100 percent recycled polyolefins, cheaper with a shorter life, and suit export where the pallet is not returned. (nelsoncompany.com)
PHS Plastic lists 19 nestable 48 x 40 and other-footprint models with dynamic ratings from 1,102 to 3,500 lb and static ratings from 2,204 to 15,000 lb, so 'nestable' spans light export pallets to heavy-duty stackers. (phsinc.com)
Wood packaging material entering the US must be treated and certified per ISPM 15. (aphis.usda.gov)
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)
PHS lists 48 x 40 stackable plastic pallets with dynamic ratings of 2,500 to 5,000 lb and static ratings of 3,000 to 30,000 lb. (phsinc.com)
iGPS announced FM approval in 2008 for its all-plastic RFID-tagged pooled pallet, which had UL 2335 certification from 2007. (freightwaves.com)
For products touching the pallet directly, stricter federal requirements may call for non-blended virgin HDPE; recycled pallets often meet general FDA needs. (nelsoncompany.com)
The 800 x 1200 mm Euro footprint is the second most popular plastic pallet size worldwide. (blog.containerexchanger.com)
In 2011 a Quebec court ruled that CHEP's identified blue pallets belong to CHEP and cannot be sold. (palletenterprise.com)
In December 2011 a Los Angeles County Sheriff task force recovered over $250,000 of illegally obtained plastic pallets, including iGPS pallets, from a plastic recycler. (eponline.com)
Rehrig Pacific's 40 x 48 heavy-duty nestable pallet is 48.25 x 40.25 x 6.5 in, weighs 28.5 lb, is rated 10,000 lb static and 3,500 lb dynamic, has a 2.55 in nest increment and 1,200 units per 53 ft trailer; the page lists no racking rating. (rehrigpacific.com)