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

How Florida compares

Florida ranks 4th of the 50 states for private warehousing and storage jobs, with 105,401 in 2025 across 1,249 establishments. A typical site employs 84.4 people.

The state sits in the South Atlantic, a Census division. Its sites average 84.4 jobs against 81.5 across the country, and it holds 5.35% of the nation's warehousing establishments.

Where the warehousing jobs sit in Florida

The counties with the most warehousing jobs, from the same BLS count: Polk (19,862), Duval (15,372) and Miami-Dade (13,042).

• Polk County19,862 jobs, 18.8% of the Florida total.
• Duval County15,372 jobs, 14.6% of the Florida total.
• Miami-Dade County13,042 jobs, 12.4% of the Florida total.

What fills the yards in Florida

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

• Warehousing and storage105,401 private jobs in 2025, 5.5% of the US total. Forklift tines split decks and chip corners. A racking change retires one style at once. Strays arrive on inbound trailers from shippers who use pooled pallets, and sit in the yard until someone asks whose they are. Check the strays first. Then separate the rackables, which are usually PP, from the nestables, which are usually HDPE. Describe each stack as its own line. In a pile from here, photograph the yard stacks, from the dock side.
• Grocery and related product wholesale63,967 private jobs in 2025, 7.7% of the US total. High volume and many inbound shippers. Strays collect at the back of the yard. Sets retire when a retailer changes its pallet standard. Sort marked from unmarked first. Count the unmarked by style. This industry is where the ownership check matters most. In a pile from here, photograph every mark, logo and RFID bump.

The rest of Florida's pallet economy

Private jobs in 2025: food manufacturing 39,390, pharmaceutical manufacturing 13,320, motor vehicle assembly 2,050 and auto parts 3,148. Measured against the national share of employment, warehousing and storage is the most concentrated pallet-using industry here, at 0.8 times.

Cold storage in Florida

USDA counted 254 million cubic feet of gross refrigerated warehouse space in Florida on October 1, 2025, 5th of 36 states. Cold stores wear pallets differently, and the refrigerated warehousing page says how.

What the size of the state means

Florida 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 South Atlantic

Against Florida's 105,401 warehousing jobs, the largest metros in the same division are Atlanta, Georgia (49,050, 0.47 times), Charlotte, North Carolina (18,437, 0.17 times), Savannah, Georgia (6,384, 0.06 times), Baltimore, Maryland (6,377, 0.06 times), Greenville, South Carolina (4,575, 0.04 times) and Charleston, South Carolina (3,242, 0.03 times).

Next to Florida

The table sets the warehousing counts of Alabama and Georgia against Florida.

Metros we cover in Florida

Miami, Orlando, Jacksonville and Tampa each have a page with ZIPs, counties and a corridor note.

• Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach22,104 warehousing jobs, 17th of 60 metros. ZIPs 33178, 33172, 33122.
• Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford13,928 warehousing jobs, 30th of 60 metros. ZIPs 32824, 32809, 32837.
• Jacksonville15,384 warehousing jobs, 28th of 60 metros. ZIPs 32218, 32254, 32219.
• Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater13,205 warehousing jobs, 32nd of 60 metros. ZIPs 33619, 33610, 33605.

Marked pallets in Florida

Florida has no rule we can cite on stray proprietary pallets. Until an owner is ruled out by the marks, nothing in a Florida load is ground.

Describing a Florida load

Three facts first for Florida: ZIP, count, footprint. Pallets from grocery and related product wholesale want every mark, logo and RFID bump photographed; warehousing and storage pallets want the yard stacks, from the dock side photographed.