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

How Iowa compares

Across 338 establishments, warehousing and storage in Iowa employed 19,824 people in 2025. That is 1.04% of the national total and puts the state 29th of 50, with an average of 58.7 jobs per site.

The state sits in the West North Central states, a Census division. Its sites average 58.7 jobs against 81.5 across the country, and it holds 1.45% of the nation's warehousing establishments.

Where the warehousing jobs sit in Iowa

The counties with the most warehousing jobs, from the same BLS count: Polk (4,393), Scott (3,450) and Black Hawk (2,144).

• Polk County4,393 jobs, 22.2% of the Iowa total.
• Scott County3,450 jobs, 17.4% of the Iowa total.
• Black Hawk County2,144 jobs, 10.8% of the Iowa total.

What fills the yards in Iowa

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

• Food manufacturing60,161 private jobs in 2025, 3.4% of the US total. Sanitation audits remove cracked or stained pallets. A change of packaging line retires a colour-coded set. Pallets that held ingredients with strong odours or oils are culled early. 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 processing33,386 private jobs in 2025, 6.0% of the US total. Grease and organic residue are contamination. Say how the pallets were cleaned. A degreased, dry load is a normal stream. A greasy one needs a conversation. Washdown, grease and thermal cycling. Pallets are retired when the surface cannot be sanitised. Plant remodels retire whole colour-coded sets. In a pile from here, photograph the surface condition, close up.
• Plastics product manufacturing8,910 private jobs in 2025, 1.5% of the US total. Pallets for resin bags and finished goods, 48 x 40 and 43 x 43 for bulk bags. Moulders may also make pallets. Plastics plants know resin. Say what you know. They are also the likeliest to want sorted regrind, so mention if you can take flake back. In a pile from here, photograph moulded codes and maker marks.
• Dairy product manufacturing3,922 private jobs in 2025, 2.3% of the US total. Hygienic 48 x 40 pallets in HDPE or PP, closed deck, easy to wash, used through chill rooms and dispatch. Cold-room cycles and wash chemistry. Dairy residue and milk fats cling to textured decks. Pallets are replaced on a schedule or when a crack harbours residue. In a pile from here, photograph the colour code and any cracks.
• Refrigerated warehousing1,814 private jobs in 2025, 2.5% of the US total. Freezing can make some pallet materials brittle and reduce performance, per Nelson. A pallet that cycled between a freezer and a dock many times cracks at the corners and along the deck. 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 Iowa's pallet economy

Private jobs in 2025: food manufacturing 60,161, pharmaceutical manufacturing 4,094, motor vehicle assembly 346 and auto parts 4,137. Measured against the national share of employment, meat and poultry processing is the most concentrated pallet-using industry here, at 6.1 times.

Cold storage in Iowa

USDA counted 70 million cubic feet of gross refrigerated warehouse space in Iowa on October 1, 2025, 18th of 36 states. Cold stores wear pallets differently, and the refrigerated warehousing page says how.

What the size of the state means

Iowa is a mid-table warehouse state. The jobs sit in a few places, and a pile outside them is the exception. Give the ZIP early, because distance to the nearest cluster decides how a load is placed.

Big metros elsewhere in the West North Central states

Against Iowa's 19,824 warehousing jobs, the largest metros in the same division are Kansas City, Missouri (20,676, 1.04 times), St. Louis, Missouri (16,879, 0.85 times), Minneapolis, Minnesota (6,599, 0.33 times), Omaha, Nebraska (5,157, 0.26 times) and Sioux Falls, South Dakota (2,930, 0.15 times).

Next to Iowa

The table sets the warehousing counts of Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wisconsin against Iowa.

Metros we cover in Iowa

Des Moines each have a page with ZIPs, counties and a corridor note.

• Des Moines-West Des Moines4,393 warehousing jobs, 48th of 60 metros. ZIPs 50313, 50021, 50111.

Marked pallets in Iowa

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

Describing a Iowa load

Three facts first for Iowa: ZIP, count, footprint. Pallets from meat and poultry processing want the surface condition, close up photographed; food manufacturing pallets want the deck surface and any staining photographed.