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

How Kansas compares

Across 293 establishments, warehousing and storage in Kansas employed 21,158 people in 2025. That is 1.11% of the national total and puts the state 27th of 50, with an average of 72.2 jobs per site.

The state sits in the West North Central states, a Census division. Its sites average 72.2 jobs against 81.5 across the country, and it holds 1.26% of the nation's warehousing establishments.

Where the warehousing jobs sit in Kansas

The counties with the most warehousing jobs, from the same BLS count: Johnson (6,642), Wyandotte (6,378) and Shawnee (2,074).

• Johnson County6,642 jobs, 31.4% of the Kansas total.
• Wyandotte County6,378 jobs, 30.1% of the Kansas total.
• Shawnee County2,074 jobs, 9.8% of the Kansas total.

What fills the yards in Kansas

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

• Food manufacturing37,772 private jobs in 2025, 2.1% 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. In a pile from here, photograph the deck surface and any staining.
• Meat and poultry processing19,716 private jobs in 2025, 3.5% of the US total. Washdown-grade 48 x 40 pallets, often HDPE, in cold and wet rooms. Colour coding separates raw from cooked zones. 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 manufacturing7,339 private jobs in 2025, 1.3% of the US total. 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.
• Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing4,682 private jobs in 2025, 1.3% of the US total. Hygienic 48 x 40 and 43 x 43 pallets, sometimes PP for sterilisation, with documents on resin and colour. Validation changes, cleanroom upgrades and audits retire pallets in lots. Pallets are often kept sound and retired for compliance, not damage. In a pile from here, photograph the deck surface and any batch plates.

The rest of Kansas's pallet economy

Private jobs in 2025: food manufacturing 37,772, pharmaceutical manufacturing 4,682 and auto parts 2,329. Measured against the national share of employment, meat and poultry processing is the most concentrated pallet-using industry here, at 4.0 times.

Cold storage in Kansas

USDA counted 46 million cubic feet of gross refrigerated warehouse space in Kansas on October 1, 2025, 25th of 36 states. Cold stores wear pallets differently, and the refrigerated warehousing page says how.

What the size of the state means

Kansas 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 Kansas's 21,158 warehousing jobs, the largest metros in the same division are Kansas City, Missouri (20,676, 0.98 times), St. Louis, Missouri (16,879, 0.80 times), Minneapolis, Minnesota (6,599, 0.31 times), Omaha, Nebraska (5,157, 0.24 times), Des Moines, Iowa (4,393, 0.21 times) and Sioux Falls, South Dakota (2,930, 0.14 times).

Next to Kansas

The table sets the warehousing counts of Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma against Kansas.

Loads from the rest of Kansas

Kansas has no metro page yet. A load from anywhere in the state goes the same way: ZIP, count, what the pallets carried, and we say which lane suits it.

Marked pallets in Kansas

No Kansas-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 Kansas load

For a Kansas pickup: ZIP, count, footprint. From food manufacturing, photograph the deck surface and any staining. From meat and poultry processing, photograph the surface condition, close up.