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

How Georgia compares

Georgia ranks 6th of the 50 states for private warehousing and storage jobs, with 84,730 in 2025 across 1,150 establishments. A typical site employs 73.7 people.

The state sits in the South Atlantic, a Census division. Its sites average 73.7 jobs against 81.5 across the country, and it holds 4.93% of the nation's warehousing establishments.

Where the warehousing jobs sit in Georgia

The counties with the most warehousing jobs, from the same BLS count: Fulton (18,317), Henry (7,904) and Cobb (6,201).

• Fulton County18,317 jobs, 21.6% of the Georgia total.
• Henry County7,904 jobs, 9.3% of the Georgia total.
• Cobb County6,201 jobs, 7.3% of the Georgia total.

What fills the yards in Georgia

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

• Warehousing and storage84,730 private jobs in 2025, 4.5% of the US total. General-purpose 48 x 40 pallets, nestables for empty storage and rackables on beams. Warehouses hold the widest mix of styles of any industry here, so mixed resin and mixed colour piles are normal. 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.
• Food manufacturing74,165 private jobs in 2025, 4.2% of the US total. Say what the pallets carried. A load that touched edible oil is a different bin from a load that sat under sealed cartons. FDA does not approve pallet models, and recycled regrind is not made for food contact. In a pile from here, photograph the deck surface and any staining.
• Meat and poultry processing42,030 private jobs in 2025, 7.6% of the US total. Washdown-grade 48 x 40 pallets, often HDPE, in cold and wet rooms. Colour coding separates raw from cooked zones. In a pile from here, photograph the surface condition, close up.
• Refrigerated warehousing4,453 private jobs in 2025, 6.1% of the US total. Say it came from cold storage. Brittle pallets grind fine. Wet pallets should be dry before they are stacked for a trailer. In a pile from here, photograph the cracks at corners and along the deck.

The rest of Georgia's pallet economy

Private jobs in 2025: food manufacturing 74,165, pharmaceutical manufacturing 3,555, motor vehicle assembly 4,397 and auto parts 20,440. Measured against the national share of employment, meat and poultry processing is the most concentrated pallet-using industry here, at 2.4 times.

Cold storage in Georgia

USDA counted 304 million cubic feet of gross refrigerated warehouse space in Georgia on October 1, 2025, 2nd of 36 states. Cold stores wear pallets differently, and the refrigerated warehousing page says how.

What the size of the state means

Georgia 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 Georgia's 84,730 warehousing jobs, the largest metros in the same division are Miami, Florida (22,104, 0.26 times), Charlotte, North Carolina (18,437, 0.22 times), Jacksonville, Florida (15,384, 0.18 times), Orlando, Florida (13,928, 0.16 times), Tampa, Florida (13,205, 0.16 times) and Baltimore, Maryland (6,377, 0.08 times).

Next to Georgia

The table sets the warehousing counts of Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee against Georgia.

Metros we cover in Georgia

Atlanta, Savannah and Gainesville, Georgia each have a page with ZIPs, counties and a corridor note.

• Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell49,050 warehousing jobs, 4th of 60 metros. ZIPs 30253, 30336, 30297.
• Savannah6,384 warehousing jobs, 42nd of 60 metros. ZIPs 31407, 31408, 31326.
• Gainesville, Georgia656 warehousing jobs, 58th of 60 metros. ZIPs 30507, 30501.

Marked pallets in Georgia

No Georgia-specific rule on stray proprietary pallets appears in our sources. Check every pallet for marks first; California's AB 1760 is the one rule we cite.

Describing a Georgia load

For a Georgia pickup: ZIP, count, footprint. From warehousing and storage, photograph the yard stacks, from the dock side. From food manufacturing, photograph the deck surface and any staining.