Plastic pallet recycling in California: what the yards hold and where it goes

How California compares

California ranks 1st of the 50 states for private warehousing and storage jobs, with 236,923 in 2025 across 2,776 establishments. A typical site employs 85.3 people.

The state sits in the Pacific states, a Census division. Its sites average 85.3 jobs against 81.5 across the country, and it holds 11.89% of the nation's warehousing establishments.

Where the warehousing jobs sit in California

The counties with the most warehousing jobs, from the same BLS count: San Bernardino (67,058), Riverside (51,310) and San Joaquin (28,518).

• San Bernardino County67,058 jobs, 28.3% of the California total.
• Riverside County51,310 jobs, 21.7% of the California total.
• San Joaquin County28,518 jobs, 12.0% of the California total.

What fills the yards in California

2 further industries are named in the market data for California. Each retires pallets for its own reasons.

• Beverage manufacturing63,604 private jobs in 2025, 20.1% of the US total. Beverage pallets at 56 x 44 and 48 x 40, stackable for heavy static loads. PHS lists a 56 x 44 beverage pallet at 30,000 lb static. Heavy glass and can loads crush runners over time. Route changes and returnable programmes retire whole sets. Weather in outdoor yards ages the surface. In a pile from here, photograph the runners and the model plate.
• Fruit and vegetable preserving27,518 private jobs in 2025, 15.8% of the US total. A pack season ends and the yard is cleared. Sugar and acid residue stain decks. A customer standard change retires a footprint. Beverage-style 56 x 44 and 48 x 40 pallets for cans and jars, plus 43 x 43 bulk bag pallets for additives and ingredients. In a pile from here, photograph a stack from the side, and a stained deck.

The rest of California's pallet economy

Private jobs in 2025: food manufacturing 166,660, pharmaceutical manufacturing 42,575, motor vehicle assembly 27,690 and auto parts 11,444. Measured against the national share of employment, beverage manufacturing is the most concentrated pallet-using industry here, at 1.7 times.

Cold storage in California

USDA counted 400 million cubic feet of gross refrigerated warehouse space in California on October 1, 2025, 1st of 36 states. Cold stores wear pallets differently, and the refrigerated warehousing page says how.

What the size of the state means

California is one of the ten biggest warehouse states, so a load here usually comes from a cluster and not an outlier. Expect several footprints and a mix of owned and pooled pallets, and describe each stack as its own line.

Big metros elsewhere in the Pacific states

Against California's 236,923 warehousing jobs, the largest metros in the same division are Seattle, Washington (23,062, 0.10 times), Portland, Oregon (8,157, 0.03 times) and Yakima, Washington (1,309, 0.01 times).

Next to California

The table sets the warehousing counts of Arizona, Nevada and Oregon against California.

Metros we cover in California

Los Angeles, Inland Empire, Fresno, Stockton, San Francisco and Salinas each have a page with ZIPs, counties and a corridor note.

• Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim27,225 warehousing jobs, 15th of 60 metros. ZIPs 90670, 90058, 91789.
• Inland Empire118,368 warehousing jobs, 1st of 60 metros. ZIPs 91761, 91710, 91752.
• Fresno5,006 warehousing jobs, 46th of 60 metros. ZIPs 93725, 93727, 93706.
• Stockton-Lodi28,518 warehousing jobs, 12th of 60 metros. ZIPs 95206, 95330, 95304.
• San Francisco-Oakland9,473 warehousing jobs, 35th of 60 metros. ZIPs 94545, 94577, 94544.
• Salinas298 warehousing jobs, 60th of 60 metros. ZIPs 93901, 95012.

Marked pallets in California

California AB 1760 (2022) lets recyclers take possession of stray proprietary pallets if the owner cannot be identified or fails to retrieve them in time, with a 35-day period before they can be declared abandoned. CHEP USA has sued two California recyclers over CHEP-marked pallets they would not return. The ownership check matters more here than anywhere.

Describing a California load

Three facts first for California: ZIP, count, footprint. Pallets from fruit and vegetable preserving want a stack from the side, and a stained deck photographed; beverage manufacturing pallets want the runners and the model plate photographed.